Food to Energy: A K12/University Partnership to Develop a Resource Recovery Program

Americans discard 40 million tons of food waste (FW) annually, contributing significantly to gaseous emissions, leachate generation, and diminished landfill capacity. While composting FW recovers valuable fertilizer, anaerobic digesters (ADs) also produce biogas, which can be used as an energy resource to replace fossil fuels. An on-going, multi-faceted university/K12 partnership, now in its third year, integrates a school-wide FW recovery program with classroom and extracurricular education in resource recovery (RR). Pre- and post-consumer FW from the high school (HS) and middle school (MS) cafeterias at a nearby K12 school district is treated at an AD system, as part of an on-going University research project investigating the benefits of supplementing dairy farm AD feed with FW to increase energy production. The supplemental FW can improve process economics, but only if the waste is free of inorganic contaminants. Our experience with college students demonstrates the difficulties of creating a 'clean' post-consumer FW stream because of long-ingrained, improper waste disposal habits. Successfully diverting FW requires a cultural shift, which is most likely to happen by engaging younger people in proper FW separation practices. Long-term behavioral change originates in early experience; we hypothesize that students who learn source separation, participate in RR, and see the beneficial outcomes at an early age will develop and retain good FW disposal habits. A team of university students enrolled in a credit-bearing project course mentor MS and HS students to organize the cafeteria FW program. Simultaneously, under faculty guidance, these students develop and teach interactive, hands-on educational modules related to waste disposal and RR. So far we have developed seven different single- and multi-day lessons, and have worked with MS and HS environmental clubs and ten HS science classes (environmental science, earth science, and chemistry). Results from a relatively simple, anonymous pre-post survey indicate significant improvements in students' self-assessed knowledge about energy and resource recovery, a demonstrated increase in their understanding of anaerobic digestion and its capacity for producing energy from organic waste. Students are also more willing to talk to their families about proper waste disposal practices and encourage them to reduce FW. The program has garnered enthusiasm among school and community members. Our paper will present additional details about the content and outcomes from the past two years of this on-going project.