kellydrummond February 9th, 2012
Hasbrouck Dining Hall is the only dining hall on the SUNY New Paltz campus. It is a tray-less buffet style dining hall and on your way out you drop off your dishes and silverware in the dish room. But have you ever wondered what happens to your food scraps after you drop off your plates? Well I had the chance to take a behind the scenes tour of the facility and found a comprehensive composting plan.
Composting is the act of taking food scraps, yard clippings and other organic waste and combining it to create humus which is a natural fertilizer. The food scraps and other materials when combined decompose together in a pile or in a large machine and when they break down the resulting product has a high amount of nutrients which are perfect for gardening. Even in the dead of winter the middle of a compost pile is actually very hot because of the gases released in the process of decomposition.
In Hasbrouck Dining Hall the food scraps are scraped from the plates into 55 gallon barrels lined with biodegradable, compostable bags. Leftover food prep scraps from fruit, vegetables, and meat are placed in composting bins. Also included in the compost are liquids such as milk or soups. Hasbrouck does everything they can to freeze the leftovers to serve again but still food waste is produced from food scraps and liquids. Hasbrouck has also just started a food recovery program to donate the leftover food to Queens Galley, a local soup kitchen, in Kingston. Even more green composting bins are seen behind where the food is served which when all combined creates an environment geared towards composting as much as possible. Hasbrouck feeds about 3,000 people every day and 800 to 1,000 pounds of food waste is produced every day! On Sunday and Monday the dining hall typically composts about 16 barrels of food waste. Royal Recycling are the haulers that take away the composting to Greenway, a composting facility in Poughkeepsie, and they come six days a week to transport the food waste.
Taking a tour of the composting in practices was great and it is plainly seen how hard the dining hall is working to compost as many food waste as possible. The whole facility has an environmentally friendly mindset and while I was taking the tour I saw many dining hall workers actively putting food scraps into green composting bins.
To see pictures of this behind the scenes tour please go to: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150525150427750.373625.195052437749&type=1 and don’t forget to “like” New Paltz Recycles while you’re there!
kellydrummond February 5th, 2012
RecycleMania is an 8 week competition between colleges and universities across the United States and Canada. This friendly competition is aimed to increase recycling and raise awareness of sustainability issues. Here on our campus it is also a competition between each residence hall.
RecycleMania is split into two different divisions, competition and benchmark. SUNY New Paltz is involved in the benchmark division. This means that the recycling of the campus is tracked for all eight weeks of competition but are not included in the overall rankings in the results of the competition.
The goals of this national competition is to raise awareness of recycling programs, increase participation in recycling programs by both students and staff, and to decrease the amount of waste produced by the college or university by reusing, reducing, and recycling.
Each hall is encouraged to have programs involving RecycleMania and help raise awareness about the competition and recycling in general to help their hall win the grand prize!
The competition begins today (February 5th) and ends on March 31st. The winning residence hall will receive $500! The materials included in the competition are paper, cardboard, cans, bottles, and food waste (composting).
If you would like to get more involved in RecycleMania you can do so by joining Recycling Club! We are having two general interest meetings this week, one on Tuesday at 8pm in SU 414 and the other on Thursday at 8pm in SU 401/405. All are welcome to join and if you feel shy about coming yourself then grab a friend! Recycling Club also has a table at tomorrow’s club fair in SU MPR from 11am to 2pm so come talk to us!
kellydrummond January 20th, 2012
Terracycle is a program that was started in the middle of the Fall 2011 semester here at SUNY New Paltz and has quickly gained recognition around campus. Terracycle is a company that sponsors the recycling of items that are not usually recycled such as chip bags, candy wrappers, drink pouches, etc. The three collection bins around campus are located on the first floor of the Student Union building, the first floor of Hasbrouck Dining Hall, and the Backstage Café at Parker Theater.
Recycling Club and I collected the chip bags about every two weeks since the bins were introduced and have noticed considerable progress. At the first collection the bin in the Student Union Building had 15 chip bags and the bin in Hasbrouck Dining Hall had 16 chip bags. We collected 25 chip bags from the Student Union Terracycle bin and 27 from the one in Hasbrouck Dining Hall. At the final collection of the semester the Student Union bin had 41 chip bags, the Hasbrouck Dining Hall bin had 62 chip bags, and the Parker Theater bin had 10 chip bags. Overall we have collected 196 chip bags! Since the bins were first put out 2 out of 3 bins have had at least 10 more chip bags at the second and third collections.
In the Spring 2012 semester we are looking to expand the Terracycle program to the residence halls and increase awareness of the program around campus. I think the program has been a great success and will continue to succeed this semester and we have saved 196 chip bags from going to a landfill! These bags will be used to make tote bags, messenger bags, and 3 ring binders. Also with each bag saved we receive $0.02 per bag that can be donated to a variety of charities on the Terracycle website. Through recycling items usually thrown away Terracycle has raised over $3 million for charity! To check out more information go to: www.terracycle.net
kellydrummond January 3rd, 2012
Hello New Paltz Recycles fans!
Happy New Year! A good way to start off the new year is to make some New Years resolutions. In this blog post I thought I would post ten different ideas for green resolutions. Even adopting one of these resolutions can help make a difference.
Ten Green Resolutions:
1. Join Recycling Club.
2. Recycle all of your glass bottles, cans, paper, cardboard, and electronics.
3. Use eco-friendly cleaning products.
4. Shut off lights when leaving a room.
5. Carpool more often.
6. Use reusable sandwich bags or Tupperware and a reusable lunch bag to carry your lunch.
7. Read more articles online instead of printing them out.
8. Take shorter showers to conserve water.
9. Make a compost pile.
10. Start a garden.
These are a few small steps toward becoming more sustainable and going green! Good luck!
kellydrummond November 20th, 2011
The Sustainable Craft Fair is back!
Last year Recycling Club hosted the first annual Sustainable Craft Fair and it was such a success we are bringing it back this year. The Sustainable Craft Fair has all student vendors who have made crafts out of reused or recycled materials. Some of the crafts include earrings made out of bottle caps, wall decorations made out of aluminum cans, pendants, magnets, and more! At this year’s fair we will be giving away mini-cupcakes from Moxie Cupcakes and tote bags for the first 100 guests.
We are also having a sculpture contest where the sculptures will be made out of recycled materials and each person who attends will be able to vote for their favorite! If you would still like to enter the sculpture contest or find out more information please email newpaltzrecycles@gmail.com. The first place prize is $100 to Manny’s!
The 2nd Annual Sustainable Craft Fair is on December 1st from 3pm to 7pm in SU 100, all are welcome!
