Composting Details

Like Anna said, we have been working on purchasing a unit that would dehydrate most of our pre and post-consumer food waste. Because she gave a great overview of the project I will talk about some more specific aspects of what we have found out.

One thing that we have been interested in while researching the dehydrating unit is what type of capacity it has for compostable dishware. We thought it would be excellent if the machine could not only reduce our food waste, but also our waste from the Green Bean, the Cooler and the Marketplace for take home containers. Unfortunately, it looks like for each batch of food that is “cooked” or dehydrated, only 20% of it can be compostable dishware, such as the cups that we use in the Green Bean. Any type of corn-based silverware could not go in the machine because that would need to be chipped as it is almost completely dehydrated already. We would need to get another machine in order handle compostables, or research further about having compostables picked up, which would be a great idea for a project in later semesters.

After talking to Amy Munoz we realized there were some other things to take into consideration that we had not previously considered. She mentioned that finding space to put the machine could be problematic. Even though it is not that huge, Amy said that the marketplace is pretty much maxed out on space right now. If we cannot fit it in the dish room, moving pre and post consumer food waste is going to be more difficult if it has to go downstairs for example. She also had us think about how difficult this would be for the staff, she pointed out that so many people have been working for us for over ten years so re-training for a whole new system can be difficult. However, she said that if this is going to make things easier, than it will be much better received. Her ideas were really helpful in making us think about things we would not have otherwise. She was also very supportive and excited about the idea, which Anna and I found really promising.