Composting is a great way to divert waste from the landfill, fertilize local gardens and agriculture, and increase awareness of food waste. However, during the hot and humid summer months, unpleasant smells and pesky bugs can discourage even the most committed composters. The following tips help address common summer composting problems.

1. Store food scraps in the fridge or freezer

Does your compost pile up faster than you can take it out? Try keeping it in the fridge or freezer between collection days, if you are on a curbside pick up program, or until you can take it to your regular drop-off site. The cooler temperatures slow decomposition, reducing odors. Designate a food storage container or a reusable, sealable plastic bag for compost. Just don’t forget about your compost in the fridge or freezer!

2. No fridge space? Use a smaller compost bin and empty it daily

In our office, we switched from collecting compost in a 2 gallon bucket to a re-purposed sugar dish. It fills up fast so we take it out daily, instead of once a week. Taking turns makes this sound much less daunting! Plus, our food scraps don’t have time to get smelly, and the ants and fruit flies stay away. We will switch back to the larger bin when temperatures cool. Almost anything can be used as a compost bin, just make sure it has a lid and doesn’t leak.

3. Set a trap for fruit flies and gnats

Pesky fruit flies and gnats invading your kitchen space? Try trapping them in a jar or glass with a mixture of equal parts apple cider vinegar, dish soap, and water. You can make a funnel out of paper and tape it to the container so it points down, but does not get wet. Fruit flies will be attracted to the sweet smells and fly down into the jar, but they won’t be able to get back out!  Read the full instructions here.

4. Change out the compost bag or liner more often

Every three to four days, or when your compost starts to get smelly, replace the bag or liner in your compost container. You can put the old food scraps in a new bag, transfer them to the fridge or freezer, or keep them outside in a cool, dry place until collection day or until you can bring the scraps offsite. Try setting a recurring reminder on your phone to change the compost liner. 

5. Clean out the bin after emptying it

It only takes a few minutes to wash out your compost bin with soap and water. You can even wipe it out with spray cleaner and a rag. Cleaning your bin gets rid of any spills or leaks that might build up and cause odors. Make sure to let the bin dry before putting a new bag or liner in!

6. Add paper towels, napkins, and coffee grounds

Remember that compost is more than just food scraps! Adding paper towels and napkins to your compost absorbs liquids, and adding coffee grounds decreases unpleasant odors. Tea bags will also work if you’re not a coffee drinker. All paper towels and napkins can be composted, even bleached paper.

7. Bring the entire bin outside

If you use a compostable bag as a bin liner and it leaks, bring your kitchen bin outside and transfer the contents of the bag there. This way you avoid dripping smelly liquid everywhere. To avoid leaks, try double bagging, or line your compost bin with a BioBag and paper towels. While the bin is outside, you can even take the opportunity hose it out and let it dry in the sun.

On Thursday, July 11, the Tufts Office of Sustainability hosted the 2019 Sustainability Champions Ceremony and Reception. Guests gathered in the historic Coolidge Room of Ballou Hall to recognize newly trained Eco-Ambassadors and recently certified Green Offices. This year, two new awards were also presented: Sustainability Champion and Eco-Rep of the Year. 

Tina Woolston, Sustainability Program Director, opened the event by welcoming guests and introducing the new Executive Vice President, Mike Howard. He brings experience promoting sustainability at Smith College and MIT to his role at Tufts.  

Shoshana Blank, the Education and Outreach Program Administrator, then explained the Green Office Certification and Eco-Ambassador programs. She spoke on the importance of individual efforts in creating an institutional culture of environmental responsibility. Faculty, staff, and student sustainability actions are vital alongside university policies.

President Monaco attended the ceremony to personally congratulate the Green Offices, Eco-Ambassadors, Sustainability Champions, and the Eco-Rep of the Year. He remarked on the many ways Tufts has demonstrated its commitment to the environment in the past year since the 2018 reception. 

Notably, the Green Fund provided $40,000 to finance eight projects across all four campuses. Information about each Green Fund project was displayed on posters along the wall. Guests enjoyed learning about the projects, and were hopefully inspired to propose sustainability projects of their own.

The ceremony continued with the presentation of the awards. Twenty-three Green Offices received certificates in frames made of recycled circuit boards. Eight were certified at the Bronze Level, six at the Silver Level, seven at the Gold Level, and two at the Platinum Level. The 22 Eco-Ambassadors trained in June 2019 also received certificates. Each award recipient posed for a photo with President Monaco.

Sustainability Champion awards were given to JP Beaulac of Tufts Dining, Whitney Stiehler of the Tufts Wildlife Clinic, Lynne Ramsey of the Center for Engineering Outreach and Education (CEEO), and the Tufts Technology Services Green Team, as a whole group. These individuals demonstrate an outstanding commitment to sustainability at Tufts.

Elyssa Anneser, A20 and Eco-Rep Coordinator for AY 2019-2020, awarded Carla Giannattasio, A20, Eco-Rep of the Year. The new awards were designed by summer Programs Intern Jennifer Frye and created by Communications Intern Michaela Morse. They made use of old records donated to the Office of Sustainability during Spring residence hall move-out and utilized the laser cutter in the Advanced Production Lab at the SMFA to cut plexiglass and circular plywood frames.

After the awards ceremony, guests mingled and enjoyed finger foods and beverages. Discussions turned to various ways to improve university sustainability. Eco-Ambassadors encouraged coworkers to undergo training, and Green Office members promised to certify at a higher level. Guests left motivated to work towards even bigger sustainability goals. Their achievements will be celebrated at next year’s Sustainability Champions Ceremony and Reception.

To see all the photos from this year’s event, visit the Office of Sustainability’s Facebook page.

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Below is a list of all the Green Offices, Eco-Ambassadors, and Sustainability Champions that were acknowledged at this year’s reception. 

Newly certified Green Offices, all of which all successfully participated in and completed the 2019 Green Office Certification Challenge–

Bronze Certified offices:

• Tufts Technology Services – TAB 301
• Department of Sociology
• Department of Biomedical Engineering – 4 Colby Street
• Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences Dean’s Office
• Tufts Music Department
• Tufts Hillel
• Tufts Comparative Medicine Services
• Tufts Technology Services –TAB Basement

Silver Certified offices:

• Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching / Educational Technology Services
• Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development & Tufts Dental IT
• Tufts Technology Services –Information Security
• Fletcher Global Master of Arts Program
• Cummings School Dialysis Department
• Department of Public Health and Community Medicine – The SUPPER Project

Gold Certified offices:

• University Chaplaincy
• Department of Biomedical Engineering – Black Lab
• Human Resources
• Tufts Technology Services -16 Dearborn Road
• Fletcher Office of Admissions and Financial Aid
• Office of Institutional Research
• Foster Hospital for Small Animals -The Client Service Team

Platinum Certified offices:

• Center for International Environment and Resource Policy (CIERP)
• Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO)

Newest members of the Tufts Eco-Ambassador program, who were trained in June 2019:

• Liam Curry – Facilities/Engineering
• Kristen Dabney – Student Accessibility Services
• Jillian DeMair – CIERP, Fletcher
• Kim Ellwood – Office of the Graduate Dean for the School of Engineering
• Branden Etheridge – Facilities/Engineering
• Austin Fuller – Strategy & Program Development
• Caroline Harrison – International Literary and Cultural Studies
• Peter Loeb – Hillel
• Doris Pfaffinger – International Literary and Cultural Studies
• Jaime McSkimming – Tisch Library 
• Monica Morin – Biology
• Katie Mulroy – Fletcher Student Affairs
• Liza Reed – Fletcher, Communications & PR Specialist
• Melissa Weikart – Music Department
• Jenna Whitney – University Advancement Special Events
• Janice Willson – Office of the President 
• Rebekah Plotkin – Gordon Institute
• Justin Cronin – Chemistry
• Karin Wiedemann – Office of Career Services, Fletcher
• Gina O’Connor – Film and Media Studies
• Zara Konarski Rudenauer – Counseling & Mental Health
• Bruce Johnson – Eliot-Pearson/Child Study & Human Development

Sustainability Champions, who are individuals that go above and beyond what the traditional person (who doesn’t have sustainability in their job title) might do to help make Tufts more sustainable–

Inaugural Sustainability Champions:

• Lynne Ramsey – Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO)
• Whitney Stiehler – Tufts Wildlife Clinic Coordinator
• The Tufts Technology Services Sustainability Team
• JP Beaulac – Associate Director of Residential Dining
• Carla Giannattasio – Inaugural Eco-Rep of the Year Award

This year’s President’s Picnics took the various Tufts campuses practically by storm, one happening right after the other at the end of May. A few weeks ahead of previous years, President Monaco kicked off the picnic season on the Medford/Somerville campus. It was a bright early summer day that drew staff and faculty out of their offices, labs, and studios, not to mention a few students that were still around as well. A shuttle was provided for people coming from the SMFA campus, with over 1,700 attendees counted in all.

Keeping in line with the zero waste efforts of years past, the Office of Sustainability coordinated with catering services to see that all of the disposable, single-use tableware provided at the picnic was compostable, including the plates, utensils, and cups (plus napkins too, of course). This also meant going over the menu in detail, recommending cookies over, say, a whipped dessert that might come in a plastic cup which could be too hard to clean of leftover food and ultimately have to be trashed. Condiments for the delicious main fare of burgers/veggie burgers were set out in bulk, to avoid any single serving packets and reduce the overall amount of food packaging. Out under the shade of the trees on the President’s lawn, several compost-only waste stations were set up and staffed by students to help people compost all their unfinished food along with the biodegradable tableware– meaning nothing should have been sent to the landfill on the attendees’ part. An Office of Sustainability intern who is well-versed in recycling and compost rules worked near where catering was set up, sorting the waste generated by food preparation and clean-up into the appropriate waste streams, greatly reducing what otherwise had the potential to be sent to the landfill.

For those ready to take their sustainability to the next level, the Office of Sustainability offered a limited number of prizes to attendees that participated in the picnics’ BYOP initiative– Bring Your Own [Reusable] Place-setting. By visiting our table with a complete place-setting of their own– a plate/bowl, a utensil(s), and something to drink out of– each picnic attendee was eligible to take home this year’s prize: a bamboo straw with a cleaner and a carrying pouch to easily tote the set around with you. The bamboo for the straws was sustainably sourced in Indonesia and each one was laser engraved with the university-wide ‘Tufts – sustainability’ text lock-up. We ran out of straws at each picnic, with the Boston Health Sciences campus being the most enthusiastic and emptying our supply in less than half an hour that day.

Even if a picnic attendee didn’t have a complete place-setting, they were still awarded a President’s Picnic sticker printed by the Office of Sustainability and given the chance to enter our raffle drawing for this year’s grand prize of a set of three reusable produce bags. One prize was drawn on each campus, with 132 entries for Medford/Somerville, 96 at Boston Health Sciences, and 74 in Grafton. After moving the Grafton picnic to it’s rain date as a result of temperamental weather and still getting a rather brisk May picnic day, we were especially impressed with the attendees at that campus that kept their BYOP numbers on par with previous years.

A big thank you to everyone who brought a reusable of any type to one of the President’s Picnics this year. To all who earned a straw, we hope that they get put to good use representing the ever-growing culture of sustainability at Tufts, and inspire co-workers, students, and community members around you to carry their own reusable items with them to reduce the waste of single use products. We look forward to greeting everyone at next year’s picnics– and don’t forget to tell your friends to BYOP too!

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By Michael Wilkinson, Office of Sustainability Intern

The Third Carbon Neutrality Community Workshop provided students, faculty, staff, and community members an opportunity to try their hand at creating a path to carbon neutrality at Tufts through a carbon reduction simulation. In this simulation, the carbon neutrality planning team and Tufts’ carbon neutrality consultant, Ramboll Group, provided information on potential scenarios to reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Teams broke off into groups to see if they could arrive at full carbon reduction by 2050 within the temporal, social, environmental, and economic constraints of our University. Through critical thinking and teamwork, the groups were able to assemble a cohesive and functioning group of projects that both satisfied our carbon neutrality requirement while remaining conscientious of our constraints. Following this simulation, groups were given an opportunity to explain their choices.

Dan Kelley from Ramboll Group then provided relevant information to explain potential projects for the Medford/Somerville Campus. Throughout this presentation, event participants asked pertinent questions relating to each project and their larger implications for campus life. To conclude their presentation, Ramboll Group provided the current project choices, which include steam to hot water conversion, connection of the Upper and Lower Campus heating loops, a conversion of existing boilers to biofuel, and several more.  

This event allowed participants to learn and engage with the carbon neutrality planning process. Chockfull with complex technologies, on-campus interests, varied stakeholders, and peculiarities, this project requires the attention of our entire community.