Questions on Starting Composting at School-- Please Help

15 years ago

Hi,

I am trying to get Composting started at my private school sometime in the near future. About 600 students go to my school... can anyone help me in terms of the facts i should present to my headmaster such as:

How much approximately in pounds we would have...

What types of composters are available to support that quantity...

What types of composters would be able to accomodate the compost the fastest...

How to keep it outdoors, and working properly...

Thank you so much, I really appreciate your feedback!

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Comments (2)

lorna-organic
15 years ago
What are you planning on doing with the compost? You would have to have cooperation from the kitchen staff, gardening staff, students and the school administration. How many pounds of kitchen scraps does the kitchen generate each day? How many pounds of lawn clippings does the garden crew generate when they mow? How often do they mow? Are there deciduous trees on the school grounds? Does the garden crew rake up fallen leaves?

The cost savings to the school in terms of composting organic materials, which would otherwise cost the school money to haul away as trash, that would likely be your best selling point. Recycled paper can also be composted. How many pounds of recycled paper can the students collect each week?

Compost bins are sized in gallon measurements. My compost bin is a 60 gallon bin. Composted materials decompose and become smaller than they were when initially put into a compost bin. If I fill my bin to the brim tomorrow, in two weeks the quantity of material in the bin will have been reduced through decomposition by at least one-third.

Maybe you can locate a commercial composting enterprise, a large scale composter, and interview someone in management to answer your questions regarding poundage and volume. Or, you could help your school to arrange a contract with a composting enterprise which might net the school some income, as well as cost savings regarding disposal of lesser volume of garbage. Garbage collection is a significant expense.

Composting bins do cost money. The staff time required to compost will cost some money. I imagine students would volunteer their time.

Years ago, when I worked at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the larger departments arranged for all of their paper trash to be recycled. Recycling was a new concept in those days. A recycling company picked up the the large volume of waste paper the department collected, and paid the department for that paper. The department earned nearly $10,000 income in one year from recycling their waste paper. The amount of money saved in regard to the lesser volume of garbage needing to be disposed of was not tracked.
Lorna
Kimmsr
15 years ago
Cornell Composting has a lot of information about school composting as does the National Gardening Association.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Composting
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Questions on Starting Composting at School-- Please Help

Comments (2)

lorna-organic

Kimmsr

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