Composting at the University of Saskatchewan

Institutions come in many shapes, sizes and degrees of complexity. The University of Saskatchewan (U of S) is both large and complex. The main campus has a big footprint—it is nearly four sections of land in size (2,425 acres/981 hectares). It is the only Canadian university with a combination of colleges devoted to the study of human, animal and plant life on one campus. The campus is noted for its well-designed and maintained landscaping. The Animal & Poultry Science Department also has a sizable collection of dairy and beef cattle and sheep residing on the campus grounds. The plant materials and the animal manures have inspired the development of two separate composting programs on the campus.

U of S Grounds Manager, Murray Zook, says that their composting program has been ongoing since the early 1990s. At that time Zook and others at the University were aware of the value of compost as a product but there were few regional programs to visit. Zook decided to attend a composting conference at Olds College in Alberta and came home with enough knowledge to start the process.

The maintenance staff has always collected various plant ‘wastes’ from the grounds and greenhouse operations. Before the composting program, these materials were sent to a landfill; now the hauling and tipping fees involved are avoided. The materials are placed in outdoor windrows and water is added to bring the pile to the appropriate moisture level. Granular fertilizer is added to bring the nitrogen level to the optimum level. The windrows are covered with a layer of soil. The windrows are monitored and turned every two to four weeks throughout the warm months. When the process is complete, the compost is stockpiled until needed. There were 900 cubic yards ready for use in the fall of 2005.

The Grounds staff mixes the compost with clay or subsoil to ‘create’ top soil. The mixture is then screened to remove lumps and undesired materials and used throughout the campus. Annually, the U of S requires several hundred cubic yards of topsoil, valued at $15-$25 a cubic yard. The compost program allows them to make all their own topsoil on-site.

Zook sees the compost program as a win-win situation. The avoided costs for disposal and topsoil purchases leave them with a significant net savings and top quality soil is available for landscape development.

The U of S Farm Manager, Doug Bradley, is in charge of the other composting operation on campus. Every year he is faced with the management of 3,500 tons of solid manure generated by the beef and dairy cattle and sheep kept at the campus farm. The College of Veterinary Medicine also produces a smaller volume of solid manure that Bradley manages. The time-honoured approach had been to spread unprocessed manure and bedding on the U of S fields, some of which are literally across the street from city neighbourhoods. Manure spreading time was not popular with the neighbours.

A few years ago, Bradley and his staff began to compost the manure before spreading. The process they use is quite simple: they pile the manure in windrows on some available university land and turn it periodically with a payloader. The resulting compost is spread on the same fields as before, but the odour problems are eliminated. The composting process also means that the nutrients are less likely to be a source of water pollution. Bradley’s assessment is that the compost process adds a little work but has greatly improved community relations.

Margret Asmuss, Sustainablity Co-ordinator, says the remaining composting challenge at the U of S is finding a way to process wastes from the food services on campus. She has investigated some possibilities but a workable solution has not yet been found.

(Source: Sept. 06 WasteWatch)

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