Bama Dining Collabs with Students on Composting

Bama Dining is serving up more than meals to UA students, faculty and staff. They also offer a way to be environmentally sound while collaborating with students.

The latest way they are doing that is through composting.

“A student came to us about offering composting, which we were already doing back of house,” said Bruce McVeagh, Bama Dining’s resident district manager.

This spring Bama Dining started working with that student, Claire Kennedy, in multiple ways. “We’ve helped her build her group; worked with her on a logo,” said McVeagh. “We want to help carry her legacy on after she graduates and keep this initiative going.”

Kennedy, a member of the student environmental group UA Environmental Council, got the idea to bring composting options to students at UA last fall.

“While home in Portland for the summer, I got used to disposing of organic waste through the yard debris system. When I got back, I missed that,” said Kennedy. “I didn’t want to have to throw away things that I knew could be used in a more valuable way.  

“I was able to speak with Mr. McVeagh and Ms. (Elizabeth) Keller in January. We discussed composting and I garnered their interest for an in-house student composting program. The program officially started in March.”

How Composting with UA Works

Composting is the process of recycling organic matter, in this case food scraps, into fertilizer that can enrich soil and plants. Through the collaboration between Bama Dining and the UAEC, students can bring their food waste from home to be composted.

Drop-off days are currently once a week at Lakeside Dining Hall. Students can also opt-in to the composting program and receive more information about drop-off dates and locations.

Bama Dining then takes the food waste collected from students and campus dining locations to the UA Arboretum, where it’s composted to be used for planting.

Sustaining the Initiative

Kennedy plans to keep this newest initiative in front of students and even grow awareness.

“Current Environmental Council members are an important part of the continued success of the Bama Dining collaboration. Many ECo members have expressed interest in composting,” she said. “They have signed up to participate and/or have suggested great ideas for the growth and expansion of the program. In talking with them, I realized that many students did not even know that UA had a composting program. As part of making composting more accessible, I decided that it was also important to increase awareness about this practice.”

UAEC plans to post composting content and more on the group’s Instagram page. “As we move into the fall, I plan to work with ECo members to develop more educational programming about what compost is, how it works, what it looks like at UA and best practices,” she said. “Interested students will also be able to access this content to learn about composting and sign up to join.”

Teaming Up for the Environment

Bama Dining maintains other sustainability practices that include working with FiltaFry to convert cooking oils into biodiesel instead of going into landfills. They also work with campus dining locations and UA’s Starbucks locations to recycle coffee grounds.

“We’ve worked with Bama Dining in the past on increasing reusable silverware and we’re happy to see these measures being implemented. We want to continue collaborative educational programming, especially about composting and food waste,” said Kennedy. “In the future, we hope to keep working with Bama Dining to reduce waste within the dining halls by promoting the usage of reusable plates and cups.”

McVeagh wants to foster that collaboration. “We will always listen and figure out a way to help a student help the community,” he said. “Any time we can work with students in any way, it’s a positive.”