Ohio State will begin using four waste pulping systems in the new Ohio Union dining facilities.

“The waste pulping systems will help OSU food services do their part for a cleaner, healthier environment, while saving money by lowering operation and maintenance costs, slashing water bills and eliminating the transport of garbage and reducing labor,” said Tim Keegstra, associate director of Ohio State facilities operations.

A waste pulper grinds food waste materials in water to create a slurry, and then extracts the liquid from the solids. The solids are then discharged into a waste container and the liquid is sent back to the pulper to carry more waste materials.

“Where a garbage disposal is only capable of handling food materials, the waste pulper is capable of processing food waste, paper and the majority of biodegradable food containers and cardboard,” Keegstra said.

OSU has partnered with Kurtz Brothers Inc., a local environmental company, to compost the food scraps at the company’s Groveport facility.

It will benefit both parties. OSU dining facilities can get rid of the pulp, while Kurtz Brothers will utilize the raw material in their products.

“This emerging program will allow for the compacted pulp, which would otherwise go to a landfill, to be recovered, processed and reused in topsoil and mulch products. It will also convert the compost’s bio-gas into natural gas,” Keegstra said.

Environmental sustainability programs are still being finalized at OSU.

“It’s better late than never. I just think these green programs should have been implemented years before, since we are such a large university. We probably produce a lot of food waste,” said Joel Throckmorton, an environmental and natural resource student. “OSU should have done more before, but it is great that we are doing something now.”

“As a large university we really don’t produce that much food waste. Plus, food waste is biodegradable; it’s the non biodegradable products that we need to worry about,” Keegstra said. “What is important to our customers becomes important to us. There is a trade-off though … it could cost more, but money is no longer the determining factor.”

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is the green-building standard the Ohio Union will uphold, according to the Ohio Union Web site. The new union will feature the waste pulping system estimated to reduce waste by 70 to 80 percent, water-efficient landscaping and a program for recycling used vegetable oil into a bio-diesel used to fuel campus buses.

Recycling and sustainability are not only being enforced at the Ohio Union.

Other campus dining services have converted from using foam products to recycled paper products, and are dispensing recyclable cutlery individually to reduce waste. Biodegradable take-out bags are now offered, and reusable cloth bags are being sold at various locations.

“Traditional dining has gone ‘trayless,’ conserving water and energy and cutting the cost of cleaning chemicals and reducing food waste,” said Steve Sipe, operations director of traditional dining. “Customers can’t carry as much, so they don’t put as much on their plates.”

The experiment of trayless dining has apparently been a success, Keegstra said.

“At first we didn’t realize how big of an effect trayless dining would have, it cut food waste drastically,” Keegstra said.

Keegstra did not have specifics, because dining services does not weigh the amount of food waste. However, according to OSU President E. Gordon Gee’s Council on Sustainability Web site, trayless dining has reduced 70 percent of food waste.

Campus dining is working to make productive steps for the campus and for the environment, Sipe said. “We utilize whatever we can utilize.”