Free compost at the University at Buffalo - North Campus

The food waste decomposer in the recycling and composting center in Statler Commissary, North Campus, transforms everyday refuse—onion skins, egg shells, chicken bones, bell pepper tops, baked goods, coffee grinds, banana peels—into a rich, brown soil amendment gardeners can use to fertilize their plots.

Initial estimates indicate that composting kept more than 115,000 pounds of trash out of landfills between June 2009 and Jan. 1., 2010 The recycling of plastic, metal, cardboard, office paper, glass and toner cartridges cut out another 288,000 pounds of garbage.

“Why are we doing it? We think it’s the right thing to do, and if somebody doesn’t start down that path, like they say, nobody’s going to do it…We decided that we want to be proactive,” says commissary manager Tom Ludtka, who emphasizes that CDS’ initiatives are just a small part of UB’s larger effort to promote sustainability.

“What we try to tell everybody is that we believe in what we do, and it takes small steps by everyone to get the green job done,” Ludtka says. “I tell everybody who comes through on a tour, one voice is just a whisper. A hundred voices is a song.”

The organic fertilizer the machine creates is available for anyone at UB or in the community who requests it. (Broken down poultry bones, which contain slow-release calcium and phosphorus, make for a particularly rich additive, Ludtka says.) CDS also works with University Facilities to maintain two large composting piles in Beane Lot, North Campus, that produce soil the university uses in garden beds on campuses.

Ludtka says that although CDS began composting about five years ago, it was only over the past two years that administrators created and implemented a comprehensive plan for all campus food service centers to partake in the process. Now, employees in all UB dining areas place compostable goods in plastic buckets—airtight and made from recycled material—that workers ship to Statler each day.

The new machine, along with the elimination of trays in dining halls, has led to a dramatic reduction in the amount of garbage UB produces. Trash from the Red Jacket Dining Center in the Ellicott Complex now fills three or four 90-gallon totes per day, for instance, down from 15 or 16 of those same receptacles not long ago.

To request a portion of the organic fertilizer that the decomposer produces, contact Tom Ludtka at 645-2832.