There are green, cylindrical composters all around campus. They are beautiful. We told you a while back, in this very column, that we would get them, and we did. Because you can trust EON.
What, precisely, do these things do? Well, first of all, they spin, which is really exciting. More importantly, every time you spin the giant green cylinder around, you’re helping to make dirt. Because it’s not just your leftovers in there. No way. There are leaves and wood chips: what we call the brown stuff. And when you mix (a lot of) brown stuff with (a bit of) green stuff, something happens which Bio majors can tell you about. All I know is it gets hot and after a while it’s no longer green and brown, but all dirt. And eventually this dirt is used to grow more plants, parts of which you will eat. It’s a giant cycle of circular food waste. These are the things on which civilization was founded, I tell you!
These wonders of waste can be found at multiple locations around campus. You can’t miss ’em: they’re large, green, and have stickers on the side explaining what you may and may not put into them. (Repeat after me: no meat, no dairy, no silverware. And no to-go containers from Usdan with “compostable” written on them. It’s not intuitive, I know, but those are only theoretically compostable.) Just turn the top of the big green guys to open them, throw your food in, close the top again, and spin the entire thing. It’s super fun. If it gets smelly, throw leaves in it. Or get your food waste into it fast, because rotting food smells. Enjoy making dirt. It’s pretty addictive.
On another compost-related note: if you have a compost bucket in your hall or house, don’t forget to empty it into one of these new composters by the end of the year. We will be collecting those buckets of yours on Monday and Tuesday of finals week at Usdan during lunch. Alternatively, you may deposit your bucket at one of two locations during that same time period, and we will take care of them from there: the shed behind Turath House, or the Fauver trash enclosure.
Next year, your friends in the EON compost group will be getting buckets into as many halls and houses as we can, along with instructions on how to compost right. Now that we have the proper infrastructure, Wesleyan’s food waste will be put to constructive use! Until then, keep composting!
Leave a Reply