Columbia, Mo. — University of Missouri researchers have established a “closed loop” system to grow crops served on campus with fertilizer composted from the 250 tons of food discard and landfilled each year. “It’s known as the Zero Carbon Footprint Vegetable and Compost Production System and it’s the first of its kind nationwide,” said Tim Reinbott, superintendent of the Missouri University Bradford Research Center in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. “Students who throw it away get to eat it again.” Reinbott envisions the project as not just a way to save money for the university, but as a way to create a working model that other universities, prisons, and even small cities can use to cut costs and reduce pollution. According to government reports, food makes up 18 percent of the total waste stream in the U.S., and Americans toss out nearly 40 percent of the food they purchase. In a test run, food scraps from one dining hall were mixed with bedding from Mizzou’s horse farm in November as a ceremonial first load in the composting process. Now more than 250 tons of pre- and post-consumer food waste will be hauled to Bradford for composting each year, saving thousands of dollars and turning a nutrient rich waste stream into a valuable agricultural product, according to Reinbott. A 2,400 sq. foot, five-stall composting facility, dubbed the aerated static pile, was completed recently at Bradford, and the first truckload of food waste and animal bedding was dumped in November to start the cycle. Reinbott said that this process has already proven itself in other uses and eliminates many of the noxious gases, such as methane, that can escape into the atmosphere in open, non-aerated compost systems.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain