East Campus Food Waste Pilot
MIT’s Office of Sustainability along with MIT Waste Watchers are partnering with Housing & Residential Services in the Division of Student Life to launch this first-of-its-kind program in East Campus (EC) with the hope of creating a phased campus-wide residential food waste collection program. These efforts align with the Institute’s goal to achieve a 30% waste reduction by 2030, and to reduce the release of greenhouse gasses associated with incineration and landfilling.
Why East Campus?
The EC community has long been a valued partner in food waste reduction efforts on campus. Grace Xu, a resident and Waste Watcher organized a grassroots initiative to collect food scraps last year. This year we are testing out what it would take for MIT to operationalize a program at the Institute level.
You’d be surprised at how much food is actually thrown away each day in Massachusetts: vegetable peels, food scraps, unwanted leftovers, expired food etc. To address this, the state banned large volumes of food waste from disposal starting in 2014 (more here). While student-run initiatives continue to call attention to the issue of food waste, a recent waste audit revealed that 40% (by weight) of EC’s garbage was expired food items and scraps. This semester’s pilot program seeks to divert EC’s food scraps from the trash to convert disposed food into energy via the CORe facility in Boston (learn more about the facility here). Lessons learned through this pilot initiative will also help identify program strengths and weaknesses, and help inform program expansion to other residence halls.
How does it work?
You’ll notice new food waste receptacles within each kitchen (see below). Simply discard food scraps, expired or inedible food items within these dedicated receptacles— that’s it!
For real-time answers to your recycling questions, email a picture or description of an item to waste-watchers-admin@mit.edu.
Comments? We are eager to collect feedback via this on online form which will inform future programs.
Food to energy… how?
Food collected within the dedicated food waste receptacles will be processed by MIT’s waste hauler, which converts the food to energy via anaerobic digestion. This video explains the process, while our single-stream recycling is processed using a different facility, explained in this video.
Have a question about recycling items other than food waste and scraps? Try the Recyclopedia below.