Food waste is one of the most visible and solvable sustainability challenges on college campuses. At Spelman College, reducing food waste and building a successful composting program has required thoughtful operational design, strong vendor partnerships, and close coordination between dining services and facilities teams.

In another installment of the Georgia Climate Digest video interview series, climate justice advocate Eriqah Vincent sits down with Iesha Baldwin, sustainability coordinator at Spelman College, to talk about how Spelman’s food waste and composting initiatives have evolved over time, what has made them successful from an operations perspective, and what other Georgia institutions can learn from Spelman’s approach.

Highlights

6:03 - What is Sustainable Spelman?

15:11 - What is Spelman’s Climate Action Plan?

29:39 - How to work with food service providers to reduce food waste and start composting

32:00 - How operational changes can reduce food waste in institutions

35:54 - How to reduce compost contamination in cafeterias

41:53 - How to begin a sustainability program at your college or institution

49:50 - What’s giving Iesha hope around climate in Georgia

Below, we highlight key insights from Iesha’s work to explore how Spelman built a low-contamination, high-impact composting system, and how sustainability personnel and facilities managers at other colleges and institutions in Georgia can apply these lessons on their own campuses.

Why Focus on Food Waste and Composting on College Campuses?

Food waste touches nearly every part of campus life, from dining halls and catered events to residence halls and facilities operations. Unlike some climate solutions that require major capital investments, food waste reduction and composting can often be launched incrementally, making them an accessible entry point for institutions beginning or expanding their sustainability efforts.

For facilities and sustainability managers, food waste is also an operational issue. How food is prepared, served, collected, and hauled affects labor, costs, waste streams, and greenhouse gas emissions. Spelman’s experience shows that when these systems are designed intentionally, campuses can achieve measurable climate benefits while simplifying operations.

How Did Spelman Get Started with Composting and Food Waste Reduction?

Spelman’s food waste and composting initiative began around 2020, building on years of student advocacy and institutional conversations about sustainable food systems. According to Iesha, early progress accelerated once the college partnered with organizations that shared Spelman’s values around waste reduction and environmental stewardship.

A key turning point was the decision to work with CompostNow as its composting partner, followed by a transition to a dining services provider, Bon Appétit, which already prioritized food waste reduction and composting as part of its operating model.

Rather than treating composting as a pilot or add-on, Spelman integrated it directly into dining operations, ensuring that food waste reduction was handled consistently and professionally from the start.

What Role Do Dining Services and Vendors Play in Reducing Food Waste?

Dining services are central to any campus food waste strategy, and Spelman’s partnership with Bon Appétit has been foundational to its success.

Culinary staff are trained in waste reduction and composting practices, including:

• Cooking in smaller batches to avoid overproduction

• Tracking food waste daily

• Weighing and monitoring kitchen waste

• Repurposing unused produce into stocks

These operational practices reduce waste before composting is even needed. From a facilities perspective, this upstream reduction lowers hauling volumes and improves the efficiency of downstream waste systems.

Education is also part of the model. Campaigns like Spelman’s “Away With Waste” initiative helped raise awareness among students about what happens to uneaten food and how dining operations are designed to minimize waste.

How Do You Manage Compost Collection and Avoid Contamination?

One of the most practical lessons from Spelman’s program is its approach to contamination—a common challenge for campus composting efforts.

Rather than placing compost bins throughout campus, Spelman chose a back-of-house model. Composting bins are located in dining service areas and managed by trained staff, not individual students.

As Iesha explains, this operational decision has helped Spelman maintain very low contamination rates. Food waste is collected behind the scenes, transferred to CompostNow bins, and picked up regularly for processing.

For facilities teams, this approach reduces the need for constant monitoring, signage, and corrective education. It also ensures that nearly all collected material can be successfully turned into compost.

What Impact Has Spelman’s Composting Program Achieved So Far?

Since early 2020, Spelman’s composting program has diverted more than 300,000 pounds of food waste from landfills, according to impact data from CompostNow.

That diversion has resulted in:

• Hundreds of thousands of pounds of avoided carbon dioxide equivalent emissions

• Significant reductions in methane emissions from landfilled food

• More than 30,000 pounds of finished compost returned to local gardens and growers

While these metrics are important, Iesha emphasizes that composting at Spelman is also an investment in long-term systems. In Georgia, composting is not always the cheapest option in the short term, but it builds capacity for a more resilient, circular food system.

How Is Food Waste Reduction Connected to Broader Climate Goals?

Food waste reduction and composting are embedded within Spelman’s Climate Action Plan, which outlines goals to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over time.

While energy efficiency and building operations account for many emissions reductions, food waste plays a meaningful role, particularly when paired with plant-forward dining strategies and student engagement.

By treating food waste as a resource rather than trash, Spelman aligns its dining operations, facilities planning, and sustainability goals into a single, coordinated system.

What Are Best Practices Around Composting and Reducing Food Waste for Colleges and Institutions?

Spelman’s experience offers several actionable lessons for sustainability and facilities managers at other institutions:

Start with operations, not optics. Low-contamination, back-of-house composting systems may be less visible, but they are often more effective and easier to manage.

Choose partners carefully. Dining service providers and compost haulers shape what is possible. Working with partners that already prioritize waste reduction can dramatically shorten the learning curve.

Reduce before you compost. Menu planning, batch cooking, and waste tracking reduce costs and make composting systems more efficient.

Treat composting as infrastructure. Even when composting is not yet economically optimal, investing now helps build systems that will matter more over time.

Communicate progress clearly. Making invisible operational work visible helps build buy-in and reinforces a campus-wide culture of sustainability.

How Can Institutions Get Started with Food Waste Reduction and Composting?

For colleges and institutions just beginning this work, Iesha recommends starting by understanding existing operations and identifying where sustainability can support—not complicate—current priorities.

That means:

• Engaging facilities and dining teams early

• Learning how food waste is currently handled

• Exploring partnerships with local composting providers

• Piloting changes within dining operations before expanding campus-wide

Above all, Spelman’s model shows that food waste reduction succeeds when it is treated as a team effort—one that brings together facilities, vendors, sustainability staff, and students around a shared goal.

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