Processing Compost and Recycling On Campus at the Waste Education Center

Written by: Maddy Mauthe

Editor’s note: Because of staffing issues early in the fall 2022 semester, several stories that were completed in a timely fashion were unfortunately not published when they should have been. Because Pointer staff members still feel them to be important for-the-record stories, we are publishing them as we can without shifting their focus from the time period in which they should have run.  The Pointer regrets the delay. 

The Waste Management Society of UWSP lead a tour through the Waste Education Center on September 28 to showcase the processing of waste on campus.  

Composting and recycling are two of the various types of waste generated on campus.

The Waste Education Center is the main destination of recycling and compost food that is discarded from Debot, the DUC, the CPS café, and green bins in academic and dormitory buildings. 

The soil and waste resources professor as well as the faculty advisor for the Waste Management Society, Robert Michitsch, said that the residence and academic halls are averaging 200-250 pounds per week of compost. Michitsch also said that number increases as more students get acquainted with the composting process.

Michitsch said 85% of the material coming out of residence halls is recyclable material, and Upper Debot generates 600 pounds of generally untouched food per day.

The Waste Management Society of UWSP president, MaKayla Galecki, said, “Working directly through UWSP student composting has really showed me how much food we waste. It is a great thing that we are able to compost this, but this is still a lot of food that we are just wasting on a daily basis.”

Ashley Authement, SGA’s environmental and sustainability affairs director, said that SGA is in the process of working with dining facilities to provide information about the amount of food waste from UWSP students to try and lower the amount of food waste being generated.

Authement said that in hopes of reducing the 85% of recyclable materials that are being discarded as trash and not recycled on campus, SGA is in the process of creating posters to inform students of what is acceptable as recyclable material.

Authement said she hopes SGA’s initiative will make it easier for people to compost and recycle on campus in order to do more for the environment.

Maddy Mauthe

News Reporter

[email protected]