Closing the Loop
From feeding food scraps to pigs on the campus farm, to a student run campus-wide recycling effort, Green Mountain College makes every attempt to reduce waste and re-integrate it into the product stream whenever possible.
COMPOSTING PROGRAM
Everyday Green Job Corps students and Eco-Reps pick up food waste from the kitchen, dining hall and residence halls. Ever wonder what happens to it next?
Non-meat waste from the dining hall is composted, as well as animal manures from late fall to mid spring.
All college leaves are used in either the composting process or as mulch on the vegetable fields. Worms perform a large portion of the composting process and are plentiful in the compost piles.
During the winter, some paper is shredded and composted by the pigs. Non-meat kitchen waste gets fed to the pigs: some of it becomes pork and some becomes compost.
We have a composting program in every dorm building, which is organized by our eco-reps.
Compost is primarily used by the farm, and helps produce beautiful vegetables for the dining hall, Poultney Farmers’ Market, and CSA shares!
RECYCLING PROGRAM
How do we recycle? Look for the BLUE and GREEN bins in your hub, classroom hallway, or the GREEN bins outside.
BLUE: paper, cardboard, newspaper, magazines, boxboard(cereal boxes), envelopes
GREEN: #1  plastic, glass, tin cans, aluminum cans and foil
Empty all containers! No lids!
Zero-Sort Recycling is responsible for this service in our campus. It was introduced to Green Mountain College's campus in November of 2011. Casella in Rutland, Vermont has incorporated a state-of-the-art process that involves a number of innovative technolgies including rotating disc screens, magnetic currents and optical sorters. This process allows students, faculty and staff at GMC to throw all their clean recyclables into one bin! This form of Zero-Sort Recycling allows for an increase in materials recycled and helps Green Mountain reach a higher waste diversion goal.
Questions about recycling? Contact the Recycling Crew, who handles all recycling needs on campus.
GREEN MOVE-IN & MOVE-OUT
Participate in Green Move Out at the end of each spring semester! This campus wide effort reduces waste and raises awareness about over-consumption. Students bring re-usable items to each building's lounge during the last week of school.
GMC and local community members are invited to browse and take what they will use; remaining items are donated to area shelters, sold in rummage sales as a fundraiser, or added to the campus Free Store, a clearinghouse for free used items. During the 2010 spring move out GMC diverted an estimate of 2,910 lbs of waste from the landfill!
Each fall, the stored items are displayed in front of the Student Center during Freshman Orientation. Incoming students are encouraged to come and take what they need. This effort has minimized the purchase of new items like furniture, mini-fridges, televisions, kitchen and school supplies, and storage units that are purchased new to bring to school.