By this summer, Iowa State will be composting students’ food waste and using the compost to fertilize plant beds around campus.

Facilities Planning and Management, along with the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is currently working on a 200,000-square-foot compost facility adjacent to the university’s new dairy farm two miles south of Ames. FP&M officials expect to finish the facility in June.

The idea of building a compost facility, said Mark Huss, engineer for FP&M, has been of interest for approximately three years, since planning began for the new dairy farm.

The facility will use manure and bedding from the dairy farm and waste from all over Iowa State, Huss said, including food waste from ISU Dining and yard waste from campus.

The composted materials will be put to use in several areas at Iowa State. Huss said compost will be used around new construction projects, existing plant beds on campus and possibly at Reiman Gardens.

“Compost material is an excellent soil amendment,” Huss said. “It increases the fertility and structure of the soil.”

Huss also said composting is a “great idea” because it promotes sustainability.

ISU Dining will contribute daily to the compost facility. It will purchase pulpers, which transform food waste into pulp, for at least four dining centers. The pulpers cost approximately $50,000 each and will be installed in the Union Drive Community Center and the Maple-Willow-Larch, Oak-Elm and Knapp-Storms dining centers.

Food waste and other compostable materials, such as paper napkins, will then be put into a bin separate from regular trash and picked up every day.

Nancy Levandowski, director of ISU Dining, said she is excited about the compost system, but she wishes students would not waste food in the first place.

“We have a lot of student waste of product, and it bothers me to see it wasted,” Levandowski said. “I would much rather see a waste program by the students themselves, if they’re not going to be eating their food.”