PERC- the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium Spring-Summer '14 PHE-FRC Campus Updates

Ursinus July Update

Ron Wood — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 16:51:03 GMT

Not alot to report since last update as business is slow right now.

We have a new wast hauling company and will be adding a bio bin for our current composting program as well as a compactor for both our trash and cardboard

We will open for the new semester with all of our retail units using fully compostable servicewear as well as introduce the same into our catering. Our kitchen and dishroom continues to compost on a large scale.

Keystone Update June &July 2014

Michael Lusk — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:28:05 GMT

June and July have been very slow as the campus has closed down, however we did manger to digest over 500 lb.s of food with the ORCA program as we kept the food out of the landfill. We are working on programs for the upcoming semester that promote the ORCA program to the new students. We also making plans to work with the Seven Loaves Food Pantry for food donations with our students.

Franklin and Marshall July Update

Drew Niemann — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 16:04:50 GMT

The composting initiative on campus saw it come ful circle this spring. Compost material was brough back and utilized on campus. See article: http://www.fandm.edu/bell-and-tower/article/f-m-sustainability-closing-the-composting-circle

Began composting for first time during summer camp season. The overall response and cooperation of campers has been outstanding.

Additional toters and professional signage has been added to help highlight and inform about composting on campus.

JUNIATA COLLEGE - Sodexo - Huntingdon, Pa

Wed, 09 Jul 2014 17:04:39 GMT

Sodexo at Juniata College currently uses the LeanPath system to track our food waste. We are able to separte our pre-consumer waste from post-consumer which will allow us to create a "Weigh the Waste" promotion in the fall semester to coincide with other initiatives on campus. We also provide reusable clamshells to students. Historically, it wasn't popular, but a student group, Environmental Coalition, chose to build a promotion around it and participation has doubled. They are suggesting to college administration that each incoming Freshman should recieve a clamshell as part of the welcome package, which we think could be a great start to creating a culture of sustainability on campus.

The College has recently begun composting using the waste that goes through the pulper. We do not have any measurments on this to share yet.

We have recently hooked up with a chruch sponsored soup kitchen here in town. So far we have donated approximately 200lbs and the relationship is progressing very well.

Millersville University

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 16:15:18 GMT

Millersville University began off-site composting on April 25, sending almost 6000 pounds to Environmental Recovery Corporation.

In April we also began our first on-site composting using closed-system tumblers for aerobic composting. We are using coffee grounds, vegetable and fruit scraps from several dining locations on campus, as well as a local cafe in town. We have composted about 200 pounds so far.

MU has greatly decreased its food waste and continues to use tray less dining. Also, the food services staff has developed ways to accurately predict how much food will be eaten; combined with some food items being prepared as needed, there is not enough left over food to make a significant donation. In the fall, we will be looking into venues that accept small food donations.

Ursinus College June Update

Ron Wood — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 16:08:06 GMT

We finished the semester with the following accomplishments.

We successfully converted our retail operations to fully compostable disposable products. Based on our purchases we estimate a savings of approx. 3k per year as compared to the plastic – petroleum based products we had previously been using. Our production areas are also collecting food trimmings for composting, as well as the dish room which has been pulping waste for some time.

As part of our Commencement reception we worked with the Office of Sustainability on campus to use only compostable service wear.

Our Facilities Department has recently signed a new contract for waste removal. Moving forward we anticipate additional support of our sustainability initiatives on campus.

We are currently working with the Office of Sustainability and our Student Managers of our campus Organic Garden who will begin supplying our dining hall with the products they are growing. We have had discussions on their crop plan as it relates to staggered plantings and anticipated yields to meet our needs. We received our first delivery this past week of beautiful lettuces. This week we are anticipating Radishes, Kale, Spinach, Swiss Chard and a variety of lettuces.

Keystone College Update for May 2014

Michael Lusk — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:31:49 GMT

As of the end of may our ORCA food digester has digested 6,000 lbs. of orgnaic food and keeping it out of the landfill. In May we also donated over 200 lbs. of food to Seven Loaves food pantry.

Update for June 2014 - Shippensburg University

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 19:12:03 GMT

At Ship we have finally gotten on track with the input of all of our baseline data and goals. We have also gotten up to date with the 2014 school year. At this time our goal over the summer is to get better systems in place for tracking at each area dining location. Up to this point there are several things we have been doing that we have no way of knowing what are savings are, these systems will help correct that problem.

We plan on continuing with programs like Trim Trax that help to visualize to our associates the amount of kitchen prep waste being generated.

In Fall 2014 as part of our Project Clean Plate initiative we will work on new marketing methods and incentives for students who "clean" their plate.

In Spring 2014 we began a local food donation initiative called Food Recovery Network. Over the summer we will be training students, faculty and staff on the program and hope to expand our donations in the Fall. Summer donations will be limited.

At this point we are at a stand still with composting as we are composting at maximum levels for the equipment that we have.

Franklin and Marshall Spring and Summer Update

Drew Niemann — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 13:14:52 GMT

We continued the practice of composting pre and post consumer waste in the main Dining Hall for the spring semester. Noticing that fewer pounds are making it to the compost as the students and culinary teams awareness continues to grow.

We have also incorporated composting initatives into the catering services department for large events with success.

This summer during our camp season we will also compost for the first time.

Spring - Summer 2014

Jeff Creveling — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 12:37:26 GMT

Great semester at Westminster.

- We continue to reduce waste in the kitchen through staff awareness and training.

- Many events during Earth Month:

* Edible Waste Challenge. Students reduced edible food going to the dish room by 36% from the previous challenge.

* $25 refills for reusable mugs.

* No Bottle Fridays. No bottle beverage sold on Fridays in April.

- Still researching a practical solution for composting on campus.

Franklin and Marshall June 2014 Update

Tom Simpson — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 17:41:59 GMT

Since the beginning of May Franklin and Marshall has been on a reduced kitchen schedule. There have been a few events producing food waste, but not much. This weekend is Reunion Weekend with several dining events. We met earlier in the week to plan for capturing as much compostable material as possible. Pick-ups by our hauler have been on a call-in basis.

Next week begins our summer camp series with a few smaller groups. On June 29 we begin in earnest and we have been planning how to capture as much food waste as possible. During the following six weeks we should be collecting amounts similar to what happens during the school year.

Truly gratifying to us is the fact that we are now receiving and utilizing finished compost on our grounds. This completes the circle for us since at least some portion of the compost was made using our food wastes. Success!

This spring we began collecting food waste from our weekly Common Hour lecture series. Future plans will involve expanding collection to new events and sites.

Mercyhurst spring/summer update

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 14:03:45 GMT

So things have slowed down for us, same as they have for everyone. We did have several issues this year. The first was with the start of our food recovery program, collecting food from catering events. There was really never any excess food left, so we only had one collection day, which was prior to the Thanksgiving location when Parkhurst wanted to clean out their refrigerators and storage places of food that would go to waste over the break. Because of this we are currently looking off campus with our food recovery program; students are reaching out to local restaurants (chain and non-chain) to form partnerships.

With our composting program, we didn't collect anything after December because our composters froze, as usual, over the winter. But because of the harshness of the temperatures and how long it lasted, the tubs only thawed at the end of April. So for the last two weeks of classes, it wasn't worth the time to try collecting food waste again. We are working on how to improve our composting program to either prevent the freezing over the winter, or to help thaw the tubs faster in the early spring.

now that spring semester is over

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 02:19:20 GMT

Penn state Behrend does not compost or have any food donations over the summer as our cafeteria is mostly closed and our residence halls are empty.

Over the summer we will let our current compost pile cure, test it to ensure it is finished through the Ag lab at University Park and through a phytotoxin test at our own lab. When we verify that the compost is finished we strain it and use it around our campus.

Penn State Behrend received the2014 Waste Management Environmental Excellence Award for our successful composting program. We will receive this award on Monday, June 23^rd.

Since the beginning of our compost program in 2009 we have diverted 122,248 lbs. of food residuals from our landfill. We learned a lot by composting this winter. The program continues to expand. It now involves student workers, Housing and Food and Maintenance and Operations.

We had some miscommunication with our food donations toward the end of the semester. But, we worked out these issues and, I believe, I have a good student group to get it up and moving forward for fall semester.

We started a small herb garden by our kitchen to grow, dry and freeze herbs for our kitchen. We continue to buy locally and look for ways to reduce food waste at purchase point.

Penn State Erie, the Behrend College

Thu, 03 Apr 2014 17:34:41 GMT

This is the first winter we composted. It worked out well with a few weather related problems.

In February we collected 39,440 lbs of organic material.

In addition, we have donated 3133 lbs of food to Erie City Mission from September 2013 until end of February. We also joined the Food Recovery Network ( FRN) and a student wrote a grant and we received reusable containers to store and help transport food.

Franklin and Marshall - Dining Services Update

Drew Niemann — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 16:00:16 GMT

Plans have started to bring retail venues on board with composting moving forward. In addition, additional cans are being brought to the student restaurant to capture food waste as the initiative is beginning to gain traction among students. The week members of the management team took a tour of the composting (Terra Gro) facility with other members of the campus community. Began discussions with a student leader on campus to begin the Food Recovery Challenge.

Ursinus College April Update

Ron Wood — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 15:56:00 GMT

We have input our baseline data and are compiling the optional landfilled information so as to have that included in our baseline data for 2013. We opted to include this as we would like to see the year to year results of shifting our waste stream to mostly compostable items. We anticipate having the landfill data by the end of this week and submitting shortly thereafter.

In partnership with our Office of Sustainability and our Campus Organic Garden we anticipate getting our first crop of hot house lettuces and greens by the end of this month. We have commited to utilizing as much product as they can produce. The garden was recently expanded by adding several acres of growing space. We anticipate production to yield usable products April through October.

March Update - Keystone College

Michael Lusk — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 14:46:09 GMT

Keystone delivered 75 lbs. of food this month to local pantry. New ORCA food digester is here on campus, we look to have it hooked up by next week. It will digest up 1500 lbs. of organic food in 24 hours, turning it into grey water. Earth day activities planned for students utlizing as much local foods as possible.

Mercyhurst University - spring update

Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:41:21 GMT

Mercyhurst hasn't had much progress this winter leading into spring relating to Food Recovery. We had started leftover food collection with our dining services through catering; however because of how well they do with re-using food without wasting, there hasn't been much collection. So, instead, our Service Learning department has been reaching out to local restaurants including Little Caesar and Tim Horton about possibly working with them on a Food Recovery program. Will keep you updated on how that goes. As far as composting, due to the awful cold, our composters have been frozen since Christmas and we are hoping that we can get everything thawed and broken up by the second week of April so we can at least start collecting some food waste before graduate.

January Update - Franklin and Marshall

Drew Niemann — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 15:25:19 GMT

The start of the new school year saw the addition of Post Consumer Waste being added to the existing composting practices on campus. The main dining hall, Restaurants at Ben Franklin began the new program at the start of the new semester with the help of the colleges Student Sustainability organization and Sustainability office. All waste in this area is either recycled or composted now. In order to go this route, Dining Services moved to 100% compostable products in its service ware offerings in the venue.

Ursinus College Dining Services March Update

Ron Wood — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:16:10 GMT

March Update for Ursinus College Dining Services

Conversion to Compostable service ware in Retail operations

Over the winter break we converted all of the disposable service ware for our Retail operations to compostable products including the bags to collect them.

This effort was launched out of discussions with the Office of Sustainability, Facilities and Dining Services after completing a waste diversion exercise with our ENV program classes. Based on the data they collected we saw an opportunity to reduce the amount of trash going to landfills and the amount of product going through a recycling process and proposed moving to compostable service ware for the spring semester. The Office of Sustainability bought several new collection systems that were placed throughout the Retail operation. Students volunteered to help with sorting instructions during meal times.

Our Resident Dining operation has been doing post consumer composting for several years and this was the next logical step in this process as we already have a relationship with a commercial composting facility. As of January the Culinary staff is now also composting kitchen waste from food preparation trimmings and scraps.

We fully implemented these initiatives the first full week of the semester when we returned in January.

The results have been a major increase in compostables and reduction in trash and recyclables.

The cost impact has been cost neutral as we were able to eliminate several high cost plastic products in favor of compostable materials. Based on our estimates we are forecasting to save $3,000 by the end of this semester.

Week 3 Recyclemania highlights!

We've doubled our Food Service Organics from 1.07 lbs/person in 2013 to 1.99 this year!
This does not include data from this semester. We expect this number to skyrocket at the end of the school year.

Our weekly recycling rate also increased from 29.85% in 2013 to 37.17% in 2014.

This number may edge downward as the majority of the Food Service recyclables have been replace with compostable products.

Food Recovery Challenge Progress

Our Sustainability Intern, Sarah Huang, has begun to input baseline data into the system.

We are working with our Office of Sustainability and Facilities Services to collect the data needed. We anticipate completion by the end of March.

Real Food Challenge Progress

UCGreen Fellow Sarah and her RFC team initiated a true partnership with Sodexo by receiving copies of electronic purchasing reports. They are organizing this data and using the information to research each food product to determine whether it qualifies as real food under the categories of local, ecologically sustainable, humane, and fair labor.

Keystone Update - Jan. & February

Michael Lusk — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 15:28:13 GMT

Keystone College Food Recovery Update. Jan & Feb.

We donated over 200 lbs. of food to the Seven Loaves Food Pantry in Tunkhannock in the last two months. Several Keystone students have delivered the food for us and have found it to be a rewarding experience. The client has named a chair for the sustainability committee and two meeting have taken place as we are working on projects for Earth day. The client has agreed to have an anaerobic digester placed on campus for the month of April for free. Keystone will test pilot the program and record data for the rest or our district. Tours will be arranged for other schools to visit and review the program.