Washington and Lee Receives Grant from Virginia Department of Environmental Quality

Under the direction of W&L's Office of Sustainability and Energy Education (OSEE), Wahington and Lee University has received $324,829 from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality's (DEQ) Food Rescue & Composting Subaward Program.

Using funding from the Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program, the DEQ awarded nearly $8 million to 12 Virginia colleges and universities. The grants are designed to reduce food waste across the commonwealth by supporting various food waste prevention, food recovery and composting programs.

The DEQ grant will support W&L's new Full Circle Food initiative, a collaboration between OSEE, W&L Dining Services, Campus Kitchen at W&L and University Facilities. The goal of this initiative is to address food waste on campus, not only by strengthening the university's composting system, but by sustainably managing food from preparation to consumption and recovery, to minimize overall waste and maximize efficient recovery.

"The Full Circle Food Initiative will reframe the good work already underway on campus from individual departmental efforts to a holistic campus strategy," said Jane Stewart, director of sustainability. "The goal is to work as a team to reduce total waste to a minimum while maximizing every opportunity to get healthy surplus food to people who need it, to ensure any remaining food waste goes to compost rather than the landfill. With the additional resources for training, oversight and equipment this grant will fund, we are in a position to move from troubleshooting aspects of food waste to implementing system-level solutions."

Community Effort
The Full Circle Food Initiative will build on the strengths of each participating department to optimize the sustainable efforts already being made across campus. It will seek to enhance waste-reduction practices in how Dining Services procures, prepares and portions food to reduce pre- and post-consumer food waste, which builds upon Dining Services' current efforts (in partnership with Leanpath) to stop food waste at the source.

Reducing food waste, however, is not just limited to keeping leftovers from the landfill; it also includes properly recovering leftovers, which requires strict food safety standards and protocols. The DEQ funding will support training and resources to ensure relevant staff have the information needed to keep surplus food safe for donation and to facilitate donation coordination. Funding also supports the purchase of an additional refrigerated food delivery vehicle for Campus Kitchen, increasing the capacity to collect food donations and distribute them to food-insecure members of the Lexington/Rockbridge County community.

The DEQ grant will also enhance W&L's current compost collection and on-site processing system. Funding will support increased staffing, an additional compost collection vehicle and more compost bins for academic buildings and outdoor campus locations, as well as professional review of W&L's aerated static pile composting system to ensure practices are as effective and efficient as possible.

Review Process
A Food Rescue and Waste Reduction (FRWR) working group, comprised of representatives from OSEE, W&L Dining Services, Campus Kitchen and University Facilities, will be established to review waste data and consult on strategies and opportunities to reduce waste, increase recovery and optimize composting. The working group will be supported by a three-year FRWR fellow, who will help coordinate the initial expansion of waste reduction efforts, analyze data and develop and execute custom trainings for relevant staff and student organizations.

Over the course of the grant period, this initiative is projected to reduce pre- and post-consumer landfilled food waste by roughly 450,000 pounds, facilitate over 20,000 pounds in additional donations to food-insecure members of the community and divert an additional 242,000 pounds of waste from the landfill to the on-site compost system.

"Perhaps most importantly, this initiative shifts our focus to big-picture thinking and encourages systemic solutions," Stewart said. "We are exceedingly grateful to the DEQ for this hugely meaningful opportunity, and we cannot wait to get started."

A Cross-Campus Collaboration

Through the Full Circle Food Initiative, the Office of Sustainability and Energy Education will collaborate with partners across campus to reduce food waste and promote sustainable food preparation, consumption and recovery:

• W&L Dining Services is committed to reducing food waste not just by keeping prep scraps and leftovers out of the landfill, but by reducing the number of scraps and leftovers produced in the first place. A recent partnership with Leanpath has provided Dining Services with tools to stop food waste at the source, and the Full Circle Food Initiative will build upon these efforts to maximize efficiency.
• Campus Kitchen's mission to address food insecurity in Lexington and Rockbridge County will be supported by the Full Circle Food Initiative's training to increase the amount of surplus food that is recoverable, along with an additional refrigerated delivery vehicle for bringing that food to community members in need through Campus Kitchen's various outreach programs, including the mobile food pantry.
• University Facilities will receive funding to support additional staffing and infrastructure to maximize composting efforts and minimize food waste, including an additional compost collection vehicle and more compost bins for academic buildings and outdoor campus locations.

Learn more about W&L's sustainability efforts at https://my.wlu.edu/sustainability.

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