Composting Comes to The Laughing Goat

You may notice new bins in The Laughing Goat Cafe in Norlin Library. As part of a pilot this semester, the Environmental Center and the University Libraries have placed eight composting bins in the area surrounding the cafe. Daniel Baril, Zero Waste Program Manager, is leading the project. “We first started in the dining halls and then expanded to the academic buildings and dorms. The cafes are next,” said Baril. He hopes to eventually expand to all cafes on campus using The Laughing Goat as a model if it is successful.

Composting on campus initially began behind the scenes in the dining halls where it was easy to control what goes into the bins. The Environmental Center decided in 2007 to trial composting in their first public place, the UMC. “Public bins are more of a risk because of contamination,” explained Baril. “If the bins have too much non-compostable material such as microplastics, they are no longer usable.”

Cost of labor is also a factor since the bins need to be emptied everyday. They collaborate with Facilities Management to determine locations of the bins and coordinate their removal. After the success of the UMC, they have been slowly adding new buildings —around five to ten per year.

Because preventing contamination of the bins is so important, student employees of the Environmental Center have been educating other students about what is acceptable compost material by tabling next to The Laughing Goat. Students can play a game called Zero Waste Speed Sort where participants decide whether an item should go in the recycling, compost, or trash. The Environmental Center is also working with The Laughing Goat to reduce their plastic packaging and use biodegradable utensils where possible. 

“As of June 2018, we have a diversion rate of 51 percent,” says Baril. “Our goal is to be at a 90 percent diversion rate by 2025.” The diversion rate is the amount of trashed diverted from the landfill due to reuse, recycling, and composting efforts. CU Boulder has produced over 800 tons of compost this year with 700 tons coming from housing and dining areas alone. Composting in the cafes will be essential to meeting that 90 percent goal.

The Laughing Goat composting pilot will continue through the spring semester.