Sustainability Task Force allocated funding from Great Works

At its meeting on April 12, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council voted to allocate $16,000 from its Great Works fund to sustainability projects on campus. This funding will finance composting at the Retreat and a uniform recycling system.

These projects were recomended by the VSA Sustainability Task Force, convened by President Jimmy Kelly '09, and composed of Representative of Ferry Haus Yasmin Roberti '11, Recycling and Composting Intern for the Sustainability Committee Emily Vail '09, President of the Vassar Greens Moey Newbold '11, former intern for the Sustainability Committee Nate Kimball '09, and Special Assistant to the President and the Dean of the College Andrew Bennett '09.

"We have been in communication with the different groups that will be involved in implementation: the Sustainability Committee, Campus Dining, Building and Grounds, and Purchasing," wrote Kelly '09 in an e-mailed statement. "The next step for us is to go out and purchase the items and to make the necessary renovations for composting," he continued. "The universal recycling system will be phased in as soon as we complete the purchases; the goal is to begin Retreat composting at the beginning of the next academic year."

The plan to have composting at the Retreat comes from the promising results of a Feb. 18 audit to measure how much refuse could be composted. From the 2,583 people that ate at the Retreat between 8:30 a.m. and 11 p.m. that day only 23 pounds of non-compostable garbage was produced.

According to the Task Force's proposal, "Combined with what is recyclable, a post-consumer composting system would limit non-recyclable and non-compostable to just nine percent of the waste stream. Structural changes involving masonry work would be needed in the back of the Retreat for storage of compost, given that the loading dock is an exceedingly small space."

"We have an area that can be converted for storage; the VSA money will help us with new composting bins. Students will be separating their compostable from their recyclables in new bins," said Director of Marketing and Sustainability Ken Oldehoff.

During the VSA forum on sustainability on Feb. 22, Oldehoff mentioned that as part of a composting system at the Retreat, dining service would have to switch to compostable plates, cups, and utensils, which would increase the cost of food.

This information initially drew sharp criticism from the council, but in his e-mailed statement Oldehoff said that most of the plates and cups in the Retreat are already compostable.
In addition, the VSA will purchase new recycling bins for the school to create a uniformed, user friendly system. According to the task force's proposal to the VSA, trash and recycling bins look identical in most of their locations on campus, which leads to a lot of trash deposited in the wrong bin.

When trash is misplaced into a recycling bin, the entire bag is rejected from recycling, which diminishes the effectiveness of the program. According to Kelly, the new system will introduce clearly differentiated bins similar to those in the residence halls.

"I commend the VSA for being the most socially conscious and proactive Vassar Student Association that I can remember in my nearly 30 years here," wrote Oldehoff. "They've addressed social issues, student issues, and now issues of sustainability. And they have addressed these issues with concrete solutions."