Composting and Community Garden

UTA Compost Center Tour and Q&A with John Darling

Watch our Compost Center tour with our campus composter, John Darling, and see what goes into the composting process yourself.

COMPOSTING

 

 

When food decomposes in landfills, it generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Composting food and other organic waste can reduce its climate impact while retaining vital nutrients for reuse in campus gardens and landscaping.

 

UT Arlington’s award-winning composting program is not only practical and environmentally friendly but is an outstanding learning tool and model for others considering similar programs. The program annually composts 30 tons of food waste from on-campus dining services and off-campus coffee shops and hospitals as well as yard waste collected from campus ground crews. The University uses this compost as mulch and soil amendment on campus grounds and in the new community garden.

Students emptying compost bin

Post Consumer Composting

This summer UTA added post-consumer composting at Maverick café and the University Center. Partnering with Cowboy Compost, over 8000 lbs. of material was collected over the summer. This program goes hand in hand with the award winning pre-consumer composting program and will enable UTA to divert even more material from the landfill.

COMPOSTING TIPS FOR OFFICE GREEN TEAMS

Collect in a bucket or container that has a lid. Deliver to the compost site behind the Environmental Health & Safety Office at 500 Summit Avenue, Monday through Friday 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.

 

 

COMMUNITY GARDEN

Community Garden

The University offers ways for community members to get involved on campus. The organic Community Garden at UT Arlington, built in collaboration with the City of Arlington has become a public green space for families, community members, and garden enthusiasts. Members of the community can adopt one of the 78 plots in the half-acre garden. As part of the $35 annual plot use agreement gardeners donate at least half of their produce to Mission Arlington, the garden’s designated food bank program.

The garden is located at 406 Summit Ave., just south of the Sweet Center at the corner of UTA Boulevard and Summit Avenue and is one of many projects on campus that demonstrate the University’s commitment to environmental stewardship and natural resource conservation, and presents amazing opportunities for open space preservation, community service learning, conservation, food production, and recycling and renewal of our most basic natural resources—plants. Connect with the Community Garden through the Facebook Page.

For requesting a plot, please contact Wendy.Pappas@arlingtontx.gov

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