May 11, 2010

by Meg Banks '11

Nick Chanin '11 who works with physical plant, has noted that the new compostable cups begin to break down inside compost piles within a few hours time.

Davidson students have implemented a creative way to promote campus sustainability on unlikely occasions-- fraternity and eating club parties. The newly formed Patterson Court Sustainability Council led a move this semester to switch from plastic drink cups at parties to compostable corn-based cups.

Lee Dorsey '12, head of the Sustainability Council, explained that the traditional plastic Solo brand cups are petroleum-based and take lifetimes to decompose. In comparison, the GenPak Harvest brand cups now being used are corn-based and decompose quickly in Davidson's on-campus composting facility. The cost of the two brands is about equal. Solo cups are sold locally at $5.22 per 50 cups, while the GenPak Harvest cups cost $5.00 per 50 cups.

The switch began this semester, with the Sustainability Council establishing a procedure that made it easy for fraternities and eating houses to participate. The Patterson Court houses could purchase the cups online at the same time they registered their parties. The cups were then packaged for each order, and were available for pick-up at the Patterson Court Council office a day or two after the online order was processed.

After the party, the sponsoring organization put discarded cups in garbage bags and took them to Vail Commons, where they were mixed with food waste in a mechanical pulper. The resulting slurry was transported to the college recycling facility on Ridge Road, where it was mixed three parts yard waste to one part food waste in a mechanical compost drum. The mixture sat for three days in the drum, where it heated up to as much as 165 degrees. The mixture was then piled under the protection of an open shed and turned weekly by a tractor. After five weeks of biodegrading, it was screened and tested for impurities before being certified as ready for use on campus flower beds, vegetable beds and turf grass.

Lee Dorsey '12 has led the initiative to replace plastic drink cups with compostable cups at parties.

Dorsey said fraternities and eating clubs held 76 registered parties during the spring semester that yielded an estimated 20,000 cups composted rather than dumped in a landfill.

Davidson's Sustainability Fellow, Kealy Devoy '08, commented, "Those cups become not only a highly nutritious soil amendment, but also yield other benefits. We send less trash to the landfill, the compost increases the soil's ability to sequester carbon, and we purchase and use fewer manufactured fertilizers and soil additives."

Davidson's entire composting enterprise, which can process 100 cubic yards of raw material a year, saves the college $15,000 a year from fewer loads sent to the landfill and fewer purchases of commercial compost from outside vendors.

Though the composted cups constitute only a small volume of the 84 cubic yards of compost the college has produced since the beginning of the calendar year, they are a prominent reminder to students of everyday means of sustainability. Devoy noted, "Patterson Court is a major social center of campus. Using compostable cups at parties involves many students in campus sustainability who might not otherwise be."

In addition to the use of compostable cups at parties, the Patterson Court Sustainability Council extended the initiative to the general student body. The cups were made available in sleeves of 50 for purchase by anyone at Vail Commons and at the Outpost late-night snack bar.

While the cups from Patterson Court have been specially collected and composted, the Davidson compost facility does not currently have the capacity to process cups from the entire community. Still, Dorsey noted that tracking overall cup sales will help determine the total amount of compostable waste on campus as the college considers possible future expansion of its compost facility.

Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,800 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C. Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Through The Davidson Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages, giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding Honor Code is central to student life at the college.
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