Compost Pilot Project

The compost pilot project is conducted three times a week on the days of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On those days our interns, Arieanna Rucker and Bryan Short, pick up pre-consumer food waste bins from both Todd and West End Dining Halls. After both pickups are made, Arieanna and Bryan take the food bins out to the Pitt County Recycling Center. Next, the food scraps are dumped and spread out across a small open field. Once the food is appropriately scattered in the field we then cover the pile with mulch to help integrate this new round of soon to be soil. After the pile has been dumped, spread, and covered in mulch the compost bins are returned to their corresponding dining halls.

To date, there have been 7,260lbs of food scraps, that is 3.6 tons of food composted! This is a daily average of 726lbs of food waste! Types of food scraps that are collected include pre-consumer scraps from pineapples, apples, pumpkins, cabbage, lettuce, strawberries, cantaloupes, grapes, bananas, asparagus, celery, along with other such vegetables and fruits.

Arieanna and Bryan are excited to be a part of this process because of the positive environmental impact composting has in comparison to throwing away the food waste instead. Additionally, helping to push our beloved East Carolina University towards a more sustainable practice is rewarding for both Arieanna and Bryan. We hope to see this project have a lasting impact and potentially influence other eco-friendly practices around ECU and Greenville as a whole