Composting Comes to Crescent Street

Gillian Reinhard ’20

Editor-in-Chief

Compost bins will be distributed to the 45 Crescent townhouses on campus. Starting this week, students living on Crescent Street will be serviced by Blue Earth Compost, which also handles composting in Mather. Two kick-off events held Monday, Nov. 11 and Thursday, Nov. 14 during common hour at 69 Crescent are designed to educate at least one member of each townhouse on how to compost efficiently. 

The Tripod spoke with Trinity Sustainability Coordinator Roseangelica Rodriguez ’15, who shed light on the recent initiative. Starting at the beginning of the week, students living in Crescent will be able to compost food scraps as well as paper towels, napkins, and specific, biodegradable brands of paper plates. Specifically, smoothie cups from either Mather or the Bistro cannot be composted. Each house will receive one Blue Earth Compost bin, and residents will be responsible for leaving their compost bins out on their porches during a designated time each week. If houses do not make an appearance at the kick-off events, members of Blue Earth will visit the townhouses on Crescent Street individually to ensure that composting is successful. 

Efforts to bring composting to Crescent Street was first sparked by a project in the course “Global Perspectives in Biodiversity and Conservation.” Max Fertik ’19, Oscar Dial ’19, Jackson Ruprecht ’19, Rafal Szacilowski ’19  and Jake Fredo ’19 spoke with the Tripod in the spring of 2019 to express their hopes for the project. According to Fertik, the group aimed to begin composting in the dorms on Crescent Street, to inspire the graduating class to maintain sustainable habits as they prepare to leave Trinity. 

Into the 2019-2020 school year, the project has been continued with support by Will Tjeltveit ’20, Brigitte Vossler ’20, and TREEHouse co-presidents Chuck Rogers ’20 and Jake McBride ’20. Additionally, Rodriguez highlighted the work of the student organization Green Campus as well as Trinna Larsen ’20, who helped to spearhead the project from its initial stages. “This project has really been driven by the townhouse residents,” said Rodriguez. 

“The expansion to Crescent Street has had the support of many students. Crescent Street residents have been extremely helpful with volunteering and making this introduction to composting possible.” To bring compost to Crescent Street, student volunteers presented a proposal to SGA for financial backing, which was granted. 

For now, composting on Crescent is expected to last for the duration of the 2019-2020 academic year. Once data is in for the current year, a pitch will be made to continue support the program going forward. As Rodriguez commented, “it will take the efforts of everyone to be successful.”