On Oct. 9, Vassar College hosted a Zero Waste Dutchess public forum to address the county’s sustainability practices. Neil Seldman, advisor to local sustainability organization Zero Waste Dutchess, led a panel discussion surrounding the Dutchess County incinerator and how the county can move toward zero waste solutions. Seldman discussed the county’s current waste management strategies, which rely entirely upon incineration. For decades, Dutchess County has used a waste-to-energy incinerator to dispose of waste, a practice that has garnered criticism from environmental activists in the area.
In the discussion, Seldman noted that not only is the incinerator bad for the environment, it has deeper detrimental effects on the economy. “The Dutchess County incinerator is the single most polluting facility in the county, and it’s also a very expensive way of managing garbage or discards,” he said. “The irony of what’s happening in Dutchess County is that all across the United States there’s enormous private sector and public sector investment in recycling, composting and reuse, and none of those strategies is being pursued by the county.” Seldman attests that there are a number of safer, more sustainable and more economically attractive alternatives to incineration. Composting, recycling and reuse programs, for example, reduce the waste stream to landfills and incinerators and create hundreds of jobs for the community.
During Seldman’s visit to Vassar, he visited Gordon Commons and noticed that waste bins in the building are marked for students as “landfill.” He explained that this label is misleading; Dutchess County has no currently operational landfills. Seldman assumed, therefore, that the waste from the dining hall feeds into the incinerator. “The College is hiding the fact that their materials are being incinerated,” he said. “That is significant because it literally means that the students are breathing their own garbage.”
Izzy Rico ’23, Vassar’s Coordinator for Sustainability Data and Programs, confirmed Seldman’s suspicions. “Most of our waste labeled landfill goes to the Wheelabrator incinerator located in the Town of Poughkeepsie,” they said. “We don’t have many alternative options to the incinerator that are nearby as of now, but we are working on a few things to lower how much waste we burn and advocate for the closing of the incinerator in favor of a managed landfill.”
One way Vassar is working toward a more sustainable future is through composting. Much of the food waste produced at Vassar originates from Gordon Commons. While students compost food waste in the dish room, even more composting is done behind the scenes. “We work with Greenway Environmental Services to compost all the food waste in the dining hall,” Rico explained. “Scraps from the front of house, where students scrape their plates, and back of house, where food preparation happens, are both put into a larger compost bin that is picked up by Royal Carting and delivered to Greenway. Greenway then sorts through the compost to remove any non-compostable items and uses microbes to break it down into usable soil.” However, when students misread the labels on each waste bin, contamination between compostable items and non-compostable items can occur. For example, non-compostable plastics that are unable to be broken down by the Greenway processes are often accidentally discarded into compost bins. Consequently, Rico explained, Vassar has recently had to cut back on some composting practices: “Due to contamination like this we had to stop composting in the College Center in 2022, but hope to bring it back as we increase our education efforts and transition to only compostable plastic.”
While composting in the College Center was put on hold, Vassar has expanded its composting practices this semester with the introduction of individual compost bins for each of the Town Houses (THs), Terrace Apartments and South Commons. “I would say the individual compost bins have been a good addition to the apartments,” Cassie Koyamatsu ’25, a resident of the THs and one of Vassar’s sustainability interns. Residents of off-campus housing often use their kitchens to cook meals, and thus produce a large amount of food waste. However, Koyamatsu noted that not everyone may actually be utilizing the bins. “It’s very much on the individual household if they want to compost or not, so I could see a large variation on the amount they are actually used.”
Seldman attested that a commitment to sustainable practices and education surrounding Vassar’s waste management is incredibly important. “It is critical that students understand what’s happening to their garbage, one because they’re living there and breathing the air, but secondly because if you study garbage you acquire knowledge about the economy and our political system.”
Students who are looking to become more involved in Zero Waste Dutchess can attend weekly Zoom meetings on Tuesdays at 8 p.m.