Northland started composting in 1993 when student volunteers first initiated food waste diversion on campus. We collect campus food waste from our dining facilities and residential halls, and host a community food waste collection site near the Hulings Rice Food Center.

For nearly thirty years, work-study and volunteer students managed campus and community food scrap collection, monitored aerobic composting, and distributed finished compost to campus gardens.

In 2021, our compost program spun off into Big Lake Organics LLC, a Chequamegon Bay region composting service offering residential and commercial food waste collection, aerobic organics composting, and garden-ready compost delivery.

In the past year alone, we’ve turned 170,000 pounds of campus, community, and business food waste and organic material (leaves, wood chips, and cardboard) into 28 tons of valuable soil.

Environmental Impact

• Reducing fossil fuels needed for transporting local foods and local food waste and concentrating our waste systems stream.
• Decreasing the most harmful greenhouse gases: decomposition of food wastes in landfills produces methane, while carbon dioxide is the byproduct of composting. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates methane produces twenty times more heat capturing properties than carbon dioxide.
• Returning finished compost to regional farms augments soils and reduces agricultural use of petro-chemicals due to an increase of beneficial in organisms and bacteria. Compost also improves water retention which reduces agricultural runoff and water use.