During my first year at EMU, there was a strong composting program that ensured that food waste from the cafeteria was transported to the maintained compost piles located behind the Suter Science building. Student workers would collect the compost from the cafeteria and using a custom-built bike trailer would take the compost to the compost piles. I remember during my tour of EMU, the tour guide pointed out compost piles behind the science center and described how the cafeteria composted. I realized that most of the schools I was looking at did not have composting programs. I am not saying that the compost made me choose EMU but seeing how the school prioritized sustainability was a determining factor in my choice to attend EMU. Fast forward to today where the food waste from the cafeteria is thrown away with the rest of the trash, and the compost piles have large “do not dump signs”. Over just a few years the composting program has been decomposing, but why?
I, like many other students, am frustrated that currently there is no composting on EMU’s main campus. I live in the Parkwoods apartments and at the beginning of the year each apartment was given a green compost bin. Initially, my roommates and I put our compost into the bin but soon realized there was no place to put the compost. We have since stopped collecting our compost because there is no accessible place to put it. There are community compost bins located at the farmers market pavilion. These community compost bins are out of the way for a majority of students, and not a solution for cafeteria compost.
Historically, composting was run by SFI with the support of a paid work study position. This position is still posted on the student employment website but has not yet been filled. This job is only open to work-study eligible students, and this limits who can apply for this job. I know that at the end of the 2021–2022 year, student volunteers were maintaining the compost. It seems unfair for the EMU to count on a few busy students volunteering their time to support a program that should be run by the institution.
Maintaining composting is not a uniquely EMU problem. I represent the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative (ACC) (formerly the Center for Sustainable Climate Solutions) as a student climate ambassador on EMU’s campus. Recently I attended an ACC ambassadors training along with climate ambassadors from Goshen College, Canadian Mennonite University, and Fresno Pacific University. At this training, we discussed a common challenge at our schools is having consistent composting on campus. At each of the represented schools, composting was a student initiative. This is encouraging because it shows that student voices have been heard. However, having composting as a student responsibility is problematic and difficult when there is student turnover every four years, resulting in ebbs and flows of composting programs.
In the meantime, there are commercial composting programs that EMU could utilize until on-campus composting is resumed. Black Bear Composting is a local business that offers composting services. This would be an additional expense to EMU but would show that the school does genuinely care about sustainability. On the EMU website, there is a section dedicated to sustainability and creation care claiming the two are “at the core of life at EMU”. This section of the EMU website claims “on-campus initiatives that make an immediate impact” and then claims that EMU has a functioning compost program. This is untrue. It’s hypocritical for EMU to continue to market sustainability as a core value if there is no institutional support for sustainability efforts on campus. EMU can have a thriving compost program if there is sufficient student and institutional support.
