Choate’s dining hall food waste is now taken to New Milford Farms, in Milford, CT, where it is composted. This waste, which includes cooked but uneaten food from the servery, leftover food from the dishes on the conveyor belt, and napkins, is deposited into a large trash bin to await the truck from Global Environmental Services, Inc. The truck, which visits four times a week, uses a large hose to gather all the waste from the trash containers. The composted food is then transported to the Milford facility, where it is processed to form a nutrient-rich soil, which is, in turn, sold to local farmers.

Ms. Katrina Linthorst Homan and Mr. Steve Cahoon, Co-Chairs of the Sustainability Committee, were the initial advocates of composting our food. To comply with a recent state ordinance that mandated the eradication of garbage disposal containers by 2011, Ms. Homan and Mr. Cahoon researched alternative options for waste disposal.

“This is a more environmental choice at this point,” says Ms. Homan. “Instead of sending food to the landfill, where it will not be able to decompose or sending it to the incinerator, where it would be burned, thus releasing toxic chemicals into the air, we are sending [the waste] to be ‘recycled’ into something that can be reused.”

The school started looking at the quantity of food waste last year and discovered the school produces about one thousand pounds of waste per day. As Ms. Homan said in an interview with News Channel 8, “We measured [food waste] for a couple of meals and we said, okay, one meal was 170 pounds of food. And what does that mean if it’s all year long?”

“This is really a good thing for the school, that we’re being able to compost the food waste,” says Mr. Cahoon. “It is a much better alternative to putting the food in a landfill or incinerator. It is good for the environment, and we are pleased with it.”

The C-Proctors and members of the Sustainability Committee have also been trying to raise awareness and ensure the success of the initiative.

“I think composting food is a really good incentive, not only because it solves the problem of what to do with food waste, but also because it emphasizes the idea of reusing things, in this case food, for useful purposes,” said C-Proctor Carolina Iribarren ’11. “This is the thought that we, as C-Proctors, are really trying to get the Choate community to understand and embrace.”

Sustainability Committee member Sofia Gearty ’09 also emphasizes the value of composting: “I think the food composting initiative is a great idea. Even as we’re trying to reduce food waste, turning the food we do waste into compost so it can fertilize land is an awesome way to give back to the planet.”

However, the new plan has not come without a cost. Choate is charged four cents for each pound of waste brought to the compost facility, totaling to about $40 per day. “It is a much better alternative to the incinerator and landfill,” says Mr. Cahoon.

“Even though we are really encouraging students to eat everything on their plates, we know that not everyone is going to abide by these principles,” says Caroline Kaufman ’10. “This way all the food that would have been wasted is being composted back into the earth.”