Food for Thought: Elizabethtown College Takes Scraps to the Farm

We all know about the "Freshman 15." But college students also waste an awful lot of food--an Ohio University food audit in 2009 found its students wasted nearly a pound of food per day in its dining hall.  So when Elizabethtown College in south-central PA was looking at ways to cut costs in its food operation while being friendlier to the environment, it made sense to tackle the food waste issue.

Since partnering with Lancaster-based Somat Company and Lancaster County farmer Mike Brubaker, the school is now are turning food scraps into dollars and giving an entirely new meaning to the word leftovers.

Last fall a new pulping system, designed by Somat, was installed in the school's dining facility. The system recycles food waste, which is transported to Brubaker Farms in Mt. Joy and used to create electricity.

Joe Metro, the school's director of facilities, says that he and Brubaker had been talking about how to more effectively dispose of food waste from school cafeterias for some time. The right time came along to put a plan into action when Somat approached Elizabethtown College Dining Services about testing a new pulper system that would reduce the amount of organic waste and allow for reduced water consumption in the college’s dining halls.

Eric Turzai, who is the head of dining services at E-Town College, says the project has been a genuine community effort.

"By branching out and partnering with the community on sustainable initiatives, it shows that we are very much focused on the environmental impact the college has on the surrounding area and promotes a positive town-grown relationship," Turzai says. "It's neat to step back and see something that works. It makes you wonder what else you can do."

A lot is being done, especially in PA. Misericordia College in Luzerne County recently reduced its food waste by 30 percent during the average lunch thanks to a student group that worked with the school's food service provider to institute tray-less lunches.

In Cumberland County, Messiah College donates leftover food that doesn't freeze well to a local mision and food banks and also saves compost to fertilize an organic garden on campus. In Lebanon County, Lebanon Valley College gives dining and catering scraps to local farmers to feed their pigs.

This is how the pulping system at Elizabethtown works: Both pre-consumer and post-consumer organic food waste from the dining halls is piped into a pulping system in the building where food waste is broken down and where water is separated from the waste. The water is recycled back into the pulping system and any excess water is pumped into a heated truck, which can hold up to 1,200 pounds of pulped organic waste and is transported to Brubaker Farms twice a week where it added to a cow manure digester.

Turzai says while many colleges and universities use a pulping system for their waste, the difference between those systems and Elizabethtown's is that they dump the used pulp waste down the sanitary sewer and continually need to add fresh water. Elizabethtown's pulping system recycles the wastewater, thereby reducing the need for fresh water.

Since the new pulper system has been installed the school has cut overall water consumption in its dining facilities by 80 percent and cut annual waste hauling charges in half to $15,000. The savings is also reflected in the fact that a compactor capable of holding 10-12 tons of non-recyclable waste is now removed from the school once a month instead of every two weeks. That waste is fed into a digester at the farm, mixed with manure at a temperature of 100 degrees and turned into a methane gas that powers approximately 199 kilowatts an hour, enough to power 200 homes.

Brubaker sells the electricity created at the farm to Pennsylvania Power & Light.

Brubaker, who has been researching ways to better use resources at his farm for years, says using food waste to create electricity is just one of many ways food waste can be used to positively impact the environment.

"There are so many different types of waste products in the community," Brubaker says. "If we can justify the economics of a project we can tap in to products that can be converted to fuel."

The digester at Brubaker Farms was built three years ago. Still, Brubaker says he still marvels at the whole concept of converting waste into fuel.

"This still kinds of blows me away. As farmers we try to be stewards of the land," Brubaker says. "The biggest struggle for farmers in general is to go the extra mile and go from being a baseline steward to above the bar."

It's an endeavor that also represents the views of students, Turzai says.

"Students are very vocal about being green," Turzai says. "They want their university or college to talk the talk and walk the walk."

Metro agreed that the project is consistent with the school's core values.

"Our philosophy is the cheapest unit of energy or cubic foot of water you will find is the one that you don’t have to buy, so our focus is to consume only the energy and hot water we need to support our educational mission," Metro says.

Also as a result of the process, excess thermal heat is created which is used to maintain a milking and pasteurization system as well as sterile bedding for the more than 700 cows at Brubaker Farms.

The digester at Brubaker Farms is only one of handful of digester in the county. There are only 16 digesters located at farms throughout the state. The cost, which can run between $1-2 million, is often prohibitive, but that will likely change.

"New technology is being developed all the time," Brubaker said. "When cost comes down we'll see more of this. It's got to work out economically as well as environmentally."

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Madelyn Pennino is a freelance writer based in Lancaster. Send feedback here.

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PHOTOS:

Michael Brubaker of Brubaker Farms.

Cows at Brubaker farms.

Michael Brubaker of Brubaker Farms in Mt. Joy explains how processed/digested cow manure is used for animal bedding and gardening.

Brubaker explains the purpose of the anaerobic digestive tank, which is 16 feet deep and will hold 675,000 gallons of manure and food waste.

A pump which meters food waste from Elizabethtown College and moves it to the main pit to make the perfect manure food waste mixture, which later results in quality methane gas.

A Gauscar engine powers a generator that converts methane into electric.

All photographs by MICHAEL BUPP