For most people, the moment the leftovers drop and the leftovers are picked up at the bottom of green compost bins in dining halls marks what the end of the line will be for that meal. In fact, just like the long adventure he took. To get to your plate, this meal still has a lot of work to do.
There is one group of students who know exactly what happens to this food waste after mealtime: the Associated Students (A.S.) Department of Public Worms (DPW). Founded in 2004 as an offshoot of the A.S. Recycling group, these students are passionate about composting and sustainable agriculture practices. DPW began its partnership with UC Santa Barbara’s residential dining commons in 2012. In 2019, their operations further expanded with the establishment of the DPW Farm on west campus.
“We have a wonderful relationship with Dining Commons, and I think a lot of that is due to consistency,” A. S. said. said Marla Greer, garden coordinator. They know what to expect from us and go above and beyond to supply quality smart appliances for our operations. We contact them every term, but it is the students who have direct contact with the kitchen staff.
Every morning, a group of DPW students — referred to as the “worm wranglers” — go to the dining halls to search through those big green bins.
“We go in the mornings, as they’re prepping the food for the day,” Greer said. “We’ve got grabbers and gloves [because] it’s definitely a dirty job to hand-sort and pick out things from their green bins and put them in our bins.”
DPW is well aware of what it can do. Basically, they collect pre-consumption food waste, i. e. , food waste that hasn’t been on someone’s plate. Most of those byproducts are byproducts accumulated in meal preparation, such as the inedible component of any fruit or vegetable that is cut. They can carry any product with them, as well as other biological products such as eggshells, coffee grounds, and tea bags. They avoid oil-based products (such as salad dressings), animal products that can contaminate the stack, “compostable” plastic items, and bread, which is technically compostable but takes longer than other items.
After deciding what they want from the communal dining room, the computer virus fighters load their bounty into the all-electric DPW vehicle that they are trained to drive as they travel between their various locations. The first prevention for food waste is “The Grove,” a composting site on the Harder Stadium campus.
Two types of composting are practiced at The Grove: thermophilic composting and vermicompost. Thermophilic means that the temperature of the pile increases as microorganisms actively break down its contents. Once the food waste is disposed of, a layer of mulch is added to the most sensitive part and the pile is sprayed with water to ensure moisture. Worm fighters will measure the temperature of the pile until it reaches the target temperature of 130 F, then it will be remixed and left to sit until heated again. This procedure is repeated 3 times until the food debris is unrecognizable. The pile is sifted and what is left is fine but very nutrient-rich soil that will be incorporated into DPW’s agricultural beds.
Additional nutrients come from the vermicompost, also called the worm compost. Located on the other side of the grove are two large wooden structures. Upon first glance, they look to be full of dirt, newspapers and a few fruit scraps. Closer inspection, however, reveals that these boxes are teeming with life. Worms work all day to digest and decompose what’s hand-selected by the wranglers to fit their taste.
“Worms are picky eaters,” Greer said. “They’re not gonna want anything spicy or acidic so as we’re collecting food scraps we’re also sorting for what the worms like to eat, like leafy greens, apples, bananas, juicy melons. Everything else goes into hot compost.”
These wooden containers have been home to many generations of earthworms. They were originally built and placed around Isla Vista, and DPW would handle biological food waste from local restaurants prior to the UCSB Dining deal. At the moment, they are in the midst of a renovation.
“We’re restoring them, repurposing them so we can enjoy the structures for many more years,” Greer said.
When computer viruses break down biological waste, they produce computer virus droppings, necessarily computer virus manure that acts as a kind of superfood for plants. The highly concentrated droppings combine with water to make what Greer calls “computer virus tea. “The virus tea is then brought to DPW’s farm to stimulate the microbiological activity of the soil.
Anyone who visits the DPW farm on a field trip will likely see how the produce is grown and then supplied to the A. S. company. Food bank. Going forward, Greer said students can expect to see produce from the farm at the food bank every two weeks.
“Right now, things are still small on the farm, but our summer harvests were really delicious and abundant,” Greer said. “We had things like tomatoes, cucumbers, so many beans, lots of peppers.” This time of year, you can find things like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, radishes and carrots on the farm.
If this food is claimed at the food bank, it returns to The Grove as biological food waste to be composted with leftovers from the dining hall. Greer talked about the “closed-loop” ion that is at the center of the DPW’s mission.
“It’s about everything repeating itself,” he said. “All produce grown on the farm is donated to the food bank, any food that is not collected can come back to us, we will compost it and once that is done, we will bring it back to the farm and use it to produce more We do not lose any nutrients in the cycle.
This is the only closed-loop operated through DPW. In addition to operating the campus restaurants and A. S. A. as a food bank, they also manage the two community gardens at Family Student Housing (FSH), with 30 plots at West Campus FSH and 60 plots at Storke. The citizens of FSH. FSH can donate their food scraps to DPW, which will compost them and return nutrients to their network gardens.
In one year of operation, from early fall 2022 to late summer 2023, the Department of Public Worms diverted 15,144. 85 pounds of food waste from landfills, according to its records.
“I think it’s vital to note that although DPW diverts a small fraction of the food waste generated at UCSB, it all stays on site,” Greer said. Additionally, she noted that “it’s really just twelve committed students” who manage this amount of food waste during the school year.
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