We have all been there: sitting in Eastern Mennonite University’s cafeteria for the third time that day, but can’t seem to quite finish all the food on your plate. You have made the mistake of putting too much food on your plate and have to rush to your next class. But being the person who does not like to waste food, as well as remain environmentally friendly, you dislike the idea of simply throwing all this leftover food and waste out. So you do the next best thing – you throw your scraps and napkins in the can labeled “compost” located on either side of the trash can. Now you can leave the cafeteria feeling content about feeding yourself as well as helping the planet. But do EMU students really know what is happening to the food scraps and compostable items that are thrown into the compost bin? 

Abigail Forrest, one of the leaders of The Sustainable Food Initiative, wants to bring attention that everything in the cafeteria compost bins are being taken to the landfill with the trash. This greatly shocked a number of students, because EMU has always been known to be a big promoter of Sustainability. This has been shown through the numerous sustainability clubs that are present across campus as well as the curriculum being taught. More information needs to be procured to find out the reason behind this.

After talking to numerous students who work and study in the area of sustainability, it was found that this has been happening for about a month. It seems as though the person who used to bike around campus transporting recycling and compost was part of the facilities department here at EMU and it appears that the compost pile itself is not being well-kept as it requires the pile to be turned over and tended to each week. Overall, time is the issue. Workers who helped out with these initiatives have needed to reduce their hours and no one seems to have enough time on their hands to begin mending this problem.  So how do we find a solution to this major problem? Many different options have been brought forward. Forrest stated, “We are wondering if students can take these positions, possibly having two students, so one person does not do it all the time. Would Bruce be up to providing a free meal as incentive when someone does compost?” Another idea that was brought forward was opening up this job opportunity for those who are not work study eligible or to the broader Harrisonburg community. The main aspect of this problem is that this job opportunity is not being advertised well enough. It seems that hardly anyone on campus knows that this is an issue, even more than a month after it started. Hopefully the EMU community can gather enough support around this issue in order to promote change and start finding solutions.