Drake University puts in a lot of work to be a sustainable campus, earning recognition from Tree Campus Higher Education for making and keeping the campus a healthy environment. One of the ways the University accomplishes its goals of being environmentally friendly is through composting — reducing waste by throwing food scraps and paper items in a compost bin rather than a trash can. This allows items to naturally break down, thus helping to conserve natural resources, reduce the number of items that go to the landfill and overall improve human health. As Drake strives to keep enhancing sustainability, one step towards accomplishing that starts with the students.
As a significant part of life as a student is getting involved in the numerous activities and organizations available at Drake, the Office of Sustainability is promoting compost bins to student organizations. These are bins that students can utilize for meetings or events. One organization that’s advocating for more student organizations to use composting is the Drake Environmental Action League. It is an organization that works to improve the environment through education, services and advocacy.
“DEAL has been using compost at our events for quite a while,” Anna Snyder, DEAL’s president, said. “It’s something that we’re very familiar with, something we’re passionate about and something we sort of have been championing.”
To obtain a bin, student organization leaders must email [email protected] with the event details, including the date, location and an estimated number of attendees. From there, the work is taken care of by the Office of Sustainability and the custodial team.
“I’m really hoping that it helps to kind of instill this idea that sustainability doesn’t have to be hard,” said Sydney Dvorak, Drake’s sustainability coordinator. “I’m hoping that it helps people feel like they’re making an impact, and then maybe it’ll make them want to make an even bigger impact with their next event.”
Dvorak, with input from DEAL and the Sustainability Committee at Drake, is working on a “sustainable events guide.” The guide will provide more comprehensive instructions on what student boards and event planners can do to make their events more sustainable.
“There will be some easy things to do and there will be some harder things to do, but the goal is to really make those resources available,” Dvorak said.
There are some barriers to using more sustainable practices, including the higher cost of compostable items compared to disposable items. Though it is not much of a difference, the prices can add up.
“The cost is a hurdle, and a lot of student orgs don’t get as much funding as they need every year to be able to run [events],” Dvorak said.
Dvorak and Snyder advocate for student organizations to use either reusable dishes and utensils or compostable paper dishes.
“I personally believe in not doing harm, and that anything I do for the environment should reduce harm to other people… That’s exactly what composting does.” Snyder said. “It just sort of saves the waste.”
