Food waste (FW) is a valuable resource, yet Americans discard 40 million tons in landfills annually. Anaerobic digesters easily treat FW to recover energy and produce effluent that can be used as fertilizer, as long as the food waste stream is void of contamination. Diverting FW from the solid waste stream requires a cultural change within the population so that organic waste streams of high enough quality can be generated.

Through a partnership between Clarkson University and the public K-12 school in Canton NY (Canton Central School District), we will train more than 60 college students and teach more than 400 K-12 students the benefits of resource recovery (RR) and the need to reliably generate a “contaminant free” organic feedstock for RR.

College students will develop and deliver class activities and mentor K-12 students in a newly created resource recovery program at the school. Post-consumer food waste will be collected at the school cafeteria and delivered regularly to Clarkson’s small scale anaerobic digester at the nearby farm operated by Cornell Cooperative Extension of St. Lawrence County (CCE).

Workshops for teachers will generate school-wide expertise so that the program will be sustainable for years to come, and will become a model for other school districts. Clarkson students will simultaneously create and implement a sister-pilot program on the Clarkson campus to supplement the feed stream to the anaerobic food digester on campus.