#2

For a long time I’ve had a love affair with journals, maybe since my grandmother gave me my very own subscription to Jack and Jill when I was 6 or 7 years old. I am always surprised at the variety and vitality of serials. I collect premier issue and vol.1 no.1 of journals. So from time to time, I’ll share magazine musings and serials serendipity on this blog.

The cover on the August 2003 “Biocycle, Journal of Composting and Organics Recycling” took my breath away. You probably can’t see the detail unless you enlarge the photo, but up close, it looks like a banquet table or a produce section of a grocery store was dumped in a field and a bulldozer is about to cover it up.

Identifiable in the foreground, all in whole form, are watermelons, potatoes, carrots, a coconut, lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, pineapple, apples, peppers, celery, turnips, bagels and endive. All I could think of when I saw it was the photos I’ve seen of urban third world children scavenging the city dumps. It represents 2.25 tons of food a day from the dining halls and on-campus hotels at Penn State University. One day. One university. Five hundred tons in 2001-2002.

I read through the article and learned that “preconsumer food residuals” and “post consumer napkins” are moved to a composting site along with agricultural residues, manure, and yard waste and trimmings. A student group on campus got this going in 1997 out of concern for food products going to landfills, a pilot program was established in 1998, and as of June 2003 it is a model for other large institutions. The compost is used for the 900 acre landscaping needs, but other benefits include less water and electricity needed to dispose of the food, and reduced noise (from disposals) for food service employees. I’m glad the food is not going to landfills, or being flushed through the sewers, or being burned in incinerators. I’m glad some of it is reusable compost and I hope other universities have similar plans. But I keep remembering those hungry kids.