詹妮弗·k·森田著

2023年12月21日

Food will no longer go to waste at 萨克拉门托 State’s Dining Commons.

Uneaten food scraps will soon become eco-friendly compost, thanks to new state funding allowing 囊状态 to purchase the University’s first on-site composter. 这些堆肥将用于给校园和当地公立学校的植物和草坪施肥。

The composter, funded through a $179,618 grant from the California Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle), will provide a major boost to the University’s sustainability efforts.

“This is a huge step towards 萨克拉门托 State’s goal to be a zero waste campus by 2030,” said University Director of Energy and Sustainability Ryan Todd. “It’s not waste anymore. It’s staying here and getting converted to usable material.”

堆肥减少了食物和植物垃圾的数量，否则它们会被送到垃圾填埋场，在那里腐烂并导致甲烷排放。 堆肥材料还可以通过帮助土壤保留更多的水分和使食物更有营养来改善土壤。

“I’m hoping this is successful, because then we can use it as an example for the rest of the campus. It would be really nice to have all of our organic material, our post-consumer food waste, going into one of these units and not sending anything off campus.” -- Ryan Todd, 囊状态 director of Energy and Sustainability

萨克州立大学目前在校园生物转化和农业集体庭院（也称为BAC庭院）堆肥消费前的有机废物，如未被脂肪或乳制品污染的厨房废料，以及落叶和其他庭院废物。

But other organic waste like uneaten food on students’ plates can’t be composted in the BAC Yard, Todd said, and instead gets compacted and hauled off to a landfill in Yolo County for composting.

一旦新的生物技术美国机器安装完毕，所有的餐厨垃圾都将在现场进行堆肥处理。

“It uses heat and agitators to mix the material around and composts food waste in 24 hours,” Todd said. “We can take it to the BAC Yard to mix in with the other finished product, and that will give us a really nice compost rich with nutrients.”

托德说，由于萨克州立大学制造的堆肥已经超过了给校园施肥的需要，可持续发展办公室与萨克拉门托市联合学区达成了一项协议，共享其堆肥。

“When the district needs compost, they shoot us an 电子邮件 and tell us what school,” he said. “The grounds guys will scoop some up, stick it in one of the big trucks and deliver the compost to the school.”

托德说，选择“公共餐厅”作为试验案例，是因为经营这家学生宿舍餐厅的爱玛客餐厅的污染率很低。

“There have been a few months this year when technically the Dining Commons was zero waste,” Todd said. “Ninety percent or more of the waste leaving Dining Commons was organic material and able to be composted.”

托德补充说，新的堆肥机将在明年内投入使用。

“I’m hoping this is successful, because then we can use it as an example for the rest of the campus,” Todd said. “It would be really nice to have all of our organic material, our post-consumer food waste, going into one of these units and not sending anything off campus.”

托德说，新的堆肥机将在10年内从垃圾填埋场转移约958吨食物垃圾。

在12月19日的CalRecycle董事会会议上宣布了这项拨款。 循环经济部副主任佐伊·海勒（Zoe Heller）表示，董事会向包括囊状态在内的23个机构提供了总计1.306亿美元的资金，用于减少200多万吨污染的项目。

“That’s the equivalent of taking 445,000 cars off the road,” Heller said at the meeting.