University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), IFSCC Member Organization and We Compost Silver Partner, currently collects food waste for composting at 5 locations on campus (Student Center East; Student Center West; UI Health Hospital; Isadore & Sadie Dorin Forum; and the School of Public Health). Their grounds crew has been composting landscape waste since 1990 following Public Act 85-1430, and in 2013 they added “back-of-house” food scrap composting at their Student Center East where most of the campus dining operations take place. This was made possible with the help of a grant that improved the loading dock and collection equipment.
UIC collects about 75 tons of food scraps annually, which represents only 1% of its municipal solid waste. Since 2013 they have diverted over 1,254,000 lbs of food waste from the landfill through composting.
Overall composting increased in 2022 as people returned to campus and dining operations increased. The hospital composting rate went down due to the hospital changing to a room-service dining model, which reduced their food waste overall (a good sign).
In 2022, UIC added the School of Public Health as its first “front-of-house” compost collection location. The School of Public Health has been a leader in sustainability on campus because they know that UIC cannot have healthy people without a healthy planet. Their dedicated green team understands its impact on making real changes in their operations to reduce emissions and waste. Public health students, faculty, and staff are invested in the success of the composting program and hope that other units on UIC’s campus will follow this example.
The following graph shows the UIC campus landfill waste profile as of November 2019:
UIC found that compostable materials are the single largest material group sent to the landfill. If UIC were to divert all of its compostable material currently going to the landfill, its landfill diversion rate would be nearly 70%. This would immediately reduce their campus’ contribution to landfill methane emissions, return valuable nutrients to Illinois soils, and teach future generations of students about composting – lessons that they will carry with them beyond UIC.