For the 2017-2018 school year, Kent has implemented compost bins by the dish return in the dining hall. The bins have been in place for 2 weeks; their purpose is to reduce the community’s food waste by recycling the waste instead of sending it to a landfill.

According to one of the presidents of the environmental club, Katie Palmer, “Kent is behind in making the campus more eco-friendly. A ridiculous amount of food is wasted every day. Even though a compost won’t fix the problem, it will reduce 30% of the waste.” With a student body of over 500 students, producing food waste is inevitable, but these compost bins are hopefully the first step of Kent’s green initiative.

Putting the compost bins to work was simple; the environmental club cooperated with the school’s community service program, REACH, and met with Mr. Wolinski, the head of the maintenance department, and Mr. Hudson, the head of the dining hall to gain their approval. Mrs. Sokolnicki, faculty advisor of REACH, hopes that “more kids will be aware of how much food waste we generate and that we can put that food waste to good use.”

Mr. Klingebiel, a driving force behind Kent’s green initiative, describes the problem with our compost system: “With so much of the food in the dining hall being cooked food and mixed up food, they are really hard to compost. They make compost challenging because they attract skunks, raccoons, and rats.”

So, while the bins help the environment, they require the students to pay attention to what they are trying to compost. As Mr. Klingebiel says, “When you throw something away it’s not a magical bye bye. It’s going somewhere.” Our new compost program requires mutual cooperation between the people who started it and the people who use it.