Renovation results in temporary absence of pulper from Rollins Dining Hall

by Monica Everett, posted March 1, 2010

Change seems ever present here at MU: first the bookstore, now Brady Commons, and, most recently, Rollins Dining Hall. Students have certainly been abuzz about the changes — all one has to do is pass by Eva J’s to hear complaints of long lines and crowded dining areas. What most students haven’t noticed is a decrease in pulp.

The renovation Rollins is undergoing now is nothing compared to what was done in 1995.  Julaine Kiehn, director of Campus Dining Services (CDS), said that dining halls are renovated every 10 years. In 1995, a pulper was installed in Rollins as an effort to improve conservation efforts.   
“The food waste goes in [the pulper] and it grinds it and spins it around really fast to get the water out. Eventually it gets kind of like confetti,” Kiehn said.

This would-be waste is extremely beneficial for growing crops. Adam Saunders, a graduate student who teaches Environmental Studies 2150, aka sustainable development in downtown Columbia, used the pulp as compost in his class.

“Compost is an absolute necessity to sustainable agriculture,” Saunders said. “Composting food scraps and other waste items is a great way to recycle nutrients and improve the fertility of our agricultural lands.”

Rollins was the only dining hall on campus with a pulper, so Saunders must now find compost from other sources. He said, however, that the lack of pulp from Rollins this semester is a “blessing in disguise.” Saunders is busy preparing a new garden for spring. He recently acquired a 1.3 acre site to complement the existing one-sixteenth of an acre demonstration garden located on the corner of Ash and St. Joseph. Saunders is currently seeking volunteers to help prepare the new site, on Smith and Fay. These efforts leave little time to pick up compost from various locations. Cutting Rollins out of the loop saves time, but might decrease value.

Saunders said he could still acquire compost from the surrounding area, such as Columbia College and local restaurants. However, this compost may not be as beneficial.

“Food scraps don’t necessarily need to be pulped, but they compost better if they are pulped,” he said.

CDS appreciates this value and need. Last week, CDS applied for funds to install additional pulpers through Student Fee Capital Improvements. Each pulper goes for about $17,000 to 20,000. They plan to install pulpers in Eva J’s and the new Student Center. CDS has hope that pulpers will eventually be installed in all dining locations.

“We’ll take as many as we can get,” Kiehn said.

She hopes to change not only the equipment in dining locations, but also the mindset of students.

“Our area of focus is to decrease consumer waste,” she said. “We would still have things like orange peels. We don’t expect people to eat the orange peels. We want to decrease edible waste and then pulp and compost the inedible waste.”

This change in mindset will take a long and strong effort. Students have made it clear that convenience is still a top priority with the recent rejection of trayless dining through a campus-wide poll and the subsequent MSA vote.

However, the financial implications of the pulping process might cause students to revaluate this attitude.

“Anything we can compost decreases our solid waste that we have paid to have hauled away, so it would be a savings in dumping fees, as well as it makes constructive use of something rather than just going to a landfill,” Kiehn said.

In other words, if enough pulpers are installed, combined with conservation of food products in the dining halls, students will actually be investing the same amount of money but receiving more and better products. Convenience might still trump sustainability efforts, but money talks. For the future, students can expect to see bigger changes in the dining system than just longer lines. The whole system might be revamped. 

“Closing the loop is really our goal,” Kiehn said. “If they can grow produce for us that’s delivered here, then there would be compost and possibly fryer oil that could be made into fuel that would fuel the trucks and take that compost back to put in the land to grow the plants…to close the loop.”

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