Y ou can’t get there by GPS. There are no signs to direct you. But just yards from Hwy 49 in Milledgeville, a little hillside with a great view is abuzz with the sounds and smells of rotating and baking leftover food.

An all-female team works this spot and plans to sell their compost, starting this fall.

Not many universities have a student-led compost program. The site diverts about 1,000 pounds of food waste from the Georgia College & State University dining hall every week.

That’s roughly 25,000 pounds per year or 1,000 cubic feet of food waste that doesn’t end up in landfills. Currently, about one-fourth of all landfill garbage is food, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“About 40% of food consumed in the United States ends up in landfills,” said compost manager Molly Robbins, a senior environmental sciences major from Duluth. “Around the country, we’re outgrowing our landfills. Compost is incredible for soil health. It increases the water-holding capacity of soil. It introduces new nutrients into the soil, allowing for microbial growth which is super important to suppress disease.”

Georgia College’s Office of Sustainability operates the compost site. Since it opened in 2017, more than 70,000 pounds of food waste have been diverted from area landfills and turned into amended soil—superior to store-bought compost.

Now umbrellaed under the GCSU Department of Biology and Environmental Sciences, the Office of Sustainability hopes to connect more faculty and students with activities and expand programming.

In the fall, the office provided 20 students—the largest group ever—with leadership opportunities, volunteer and service learning hours, and course credit in various sustainability tasks. Paid and unpaid internships are given to students of all majors in areas like glass recycling; composting; maintaining the West Campus Garden; communication and outreach; and data analysis.

Students can also earn a Certificate in Sustainability, managed by Geography Professor Dr. Doug Oetter. Senior environmental sciences major and compost assistant Anna Lippy of Stone Mountain joined Sustainability on Oetter’s recommendation.

Now, she’s thinking of working in compost as a career. She hopes the provost’s new spotlight on sustainability helps educate more students and campus staff.

“I’m hoping that the provost, since he’s showing such interest in sustainability, will help continue to make sustainability and composting a long-term thing,” Lippy said. “We want to reach anyone and everyone on campus and let them know sustainability’s so entangled in everything.”
 
For her senior capstone project, Lippy’s creating a business plan to sell 5-gallon plastic buckets of compost to local homeowners for a nominal fee. It might be called “PawPost” or “Georgia College Compost.”

This compost “is far superior” to anything found in hardware and garden stores, Robbins said. Last year, an environmental sciences study “proved our compost to be incredible and helped grow some really hearty tomatoes.”

The team sent data and compost samples to the University of Georgia for further analysis to identify a larger variety of nutrients.

“A lot of stuff you get in stores is a different kind of compost, made from green waste,” Robbins said. “It’s really carbon heavy. Green waste uses yard trimmings and wood chips. So, when it breaks down you get less nitrogen, phosphorus and fewer overall nutrients that plants love.”

Robbins, Lippy and newly-recruited compost assistant Ama Kpoyizoun of Togo, Africa, work the site daily. Bins of leftover food are collected from the dining hall, and waste put through a mixer with a spinning rake-like tool. Students pull out non-degradable items like wax liners, plastic cups or aluminum foil. They mix in a carbon source, like sawdust and wood chips. The material moves up into an ‘in-vessel,’ where it heats, slowly rotating for about three weeks.

The material is then moved to nearby tarps and turned by shovel every week—allowing piles to aerate and “cook.” Once it heats to about 150 degrees Fahrenheit, the team knows bacterial microbes are working to break down waste.

The entire process takes about three months. The final product is sifted through wire screens, then loaded into large bins and taken to the West Campus Garden for use.

Although composting has become fashionable, Robbins said most universities either don’t separate and collect food waste or they send it to private waste management facilities. Lippy agreed.

“We’re one of the few universities in the state of Georgia with students running their operation,” Lippy said. “It’s been an awesome experience learning about the whole process from start to finish. I didn’t even know we composted at Georgia College, and now I’m super interested in organic waste diversion.”

Once compost is for sale, the university will use proceeds to improve and expand its project. In the future, leftovers from area schools and restaurants could be included. Students said they’d love to get coffee grinds from Blackbird Coffee in Milledgeville.

To make their work easier, the team dreams of buying tractors that turn entire rows of dirt in 30 seconds. Right now, it takes about 15 minutes to turn a single pile by shovel.  

Aerated static piles don’t have to be turned at all, however. For her senior capstone research, Robbins ordered pipes with drilled holes to run underneath rows of compost. Pipes will be attached to a blower to pump air into baking piles, allowing bacteria to breath.

The group plans to build this system soon, dividing piles into 4x4-foot bins.

This kind of outside work excites Robbins. She’s loved composting since she was a girl on her Godmother’s farm. After graduation, she plans to work with international Christian missions, bringing sustainable agriculture to remote areas of the globe.

Managing a university compost program will put her ahead when applying for jobs.