NC State Pizza Box Composting
As the new semester starts to swing into full gear, student organizations and clubs are lining the brickyard, sending out fliers, and emailing the student body all to encourage new members to come to their meetings. What I have noticed every year is that almost all of these organizations will employ the universal persuasion tactic that gets people to show up to things like nothing else: Free Pizza!
College campuses would not be the same without the abundance of pizza. It is the go to food for a perfect late night snack, or when everything else in the dining hall smells funky, or when you need something quick for breakfast. Really there is no bad time for pizza. Here at NC State, there are about ten pizza places within walking distance, with one located right in our student union. However, after all these organizations eat through their pizza, or when the late night snacking comes to an end, what do people normally do with all those pizza boxes? You can’t throw them in the normal recycling bin, but the mountain of cardboard boxes shouldn’t just go in the trash right? NC State has started an initiative to start reusing those boxes in an eco-friendly way, and we should all be joining in!
Pizza boxes cannot be recycled like other cardboards because of the cooking grease and oil residue that pizza leaves behind. However, when huge campus events order over 50 pizzas, it seems like a complete waste to trash all those boxes. NC State has developed the Pizza Box Composting Project. All students have to do is find a bin, and drop the pizza boxes inside! These special compost bins are located at six different places on campus, making them accessible to students. There locations include Lee Hall Parking lot, Tri-Tower Parking Lot, Avent Ferry Complex, Wolf Ridge Apartments, and Greek Village. Both University House and the Waste Reduction and Recycling Office cosponsor this campus-wide project.
These composting bins collect more than just pizza boxes. You can also throw in extra pizza, napkins, and paper plates, which makes eating pizza a more sustainable food choice in multiple ways. However, some items are not compostable, including plastic utensils, garlic sauce containers, plastic stands, and plastic cups.
If your campus does not currently have a pizza box composting initiative, I would recommend looking into setting one up. It just makes sense. In what other environment is so much pizza eaten on a consistent basis? This initiative reuses something that is clearly in abundance, and takes something that otherwise isn’t recyclable, into something that can help the environment. I am proud that NC State has taken this step to providing an easy option to make use of the boxes that house one of college student’s favorite meals.
To learn more about NC State’s program click here!
Image from https://pixabay.com/en/pizza-boxes-boxes-pizza-service-358029/
