At the end of the busy lunch rush, all the waste produced by Peddie’s hundreds of students and faculty members can fit inside a single garbage can. It’s not even full.

How is this possible?

Thanks to the efforts of the Peddie Environmental & Sustainability Team — or PEST, for short — the Peddie community is now composting their food waste to decrease the school’s environmental impact. As PEST member Ethan Madden ’21 pointed out, most people produce about a pound of food waste every day. With over 500 students and dozens of faculty and staff members at Peddie, that’s a lot of food potentially put to waste. Madden said, “The priority was, how can we fix that problem, or at least alleviate it?”

Inspired by the composting program at her previous school, Mimi Narayan ’21 suggested the composting project at a PEST meeting last year. Since then, club members have taken the reins, negotiating with composting services and proposing the project to Peddie Food Services.

“The PEST people?” said director of food service Robin Wojcik. “I love them. They told me what their plan was and we said ‘We’ll support that.’ And they have been doing their due diligence.”

That diligence is visible all across campus. PEST promoted the new initiative heavily, both via newsletters to the community and in a bombastic announcement at Community Meeting. In the days after the composting bin appeared in Peddie’s dining hall, there was always a PEST member standing by, ready to offer guidance to their peers. Even now, signs promoting the composting campaign can be found throughout the student center and in academic buildings.

The signs serve as a strong reminder of the new initiative, but they’re not as powerful as the acceptance and support of the student body.

“I’ve noticed people telling other people, ‘Don’t put that in there; that’s not compostable,’” said Narayan, “or reminding them to compost. They realize it’s a really simple way that we can reduce our carbon footprint as a school.”

Fellow PEST member Zayd Charles ‘21 agreed and added, “When you guide people in the right direction, you’ll find they’re very willing to take the extra step to compost. That can be very rewarding to see, and very hopeful.”