School Compost Survey: A summary of  school compost survey are described on this blog page. Check it out to see how compost functions in schools! The survey is still open and we would love to hear about your school compost.

Whether you are attempting to cut your school districts food waste by using municipal composting facilities, adding a compost bin to your school garden, or looking for compost curriculum these pages are for you!

School Wide Composting Programs

District Wide Composting Programs

Lessons and Curriculum

School Composting Manuals and Resources

Life Lab’s tips  on successful school garden composting

This school composting slide show describes all the logistics needed to start a compost system at your school, talks about how to start the compost, the collection of food wastes on campus, and school compost maintenance.

The Northeast Recycling Council created a guide to school composting options. It details what systems work for different types of schools and has tips for different stages of the compost process. This resource also provides information on different bins capacities to decompose food scraps.

Want to compost your school cafeteria lunch scraps? Here is a 98 page compost manual made by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection that shows the steps to establish and maintain a successful school-wide composting program.

This two page manual created by Davis RISE program describes the steps needed to incorporate a vermicomposting or composting system into your school.

Post this basic compost recipe near your school compost as a reminder to the kids what ingredients are needed to make a healthy compost. Click here for a general compost recipe.

What’s wrong with my compost? Here is a guide from Cornell to help diagnose your compost.

Away with School Waste – Life Lab’s Guide to School Waste Reduction and Composting

Vermicomposting Examples

Life Lab’s Worm Composting resources and videos

The Worm Guide is available from CalRecycle for download. The guide describes how food scraps are transformed into nutrient rich vermicompost and has a variety of interdisciplinary classroom activities.

Subpod has a comprehensive guide to school vermicomposting. They also sell bin systems

This vermicomposting video created by Life Lab shows the different options educators have to build a worm bin, it also describes the capacity of different worm bins to convert food scraps, and how to make a vermicompost bin from scratch. This video also includes how to harvest worm castings and how to maintain a worm bin.

Bin Examples

View Life Lab’s school compost photo gallery click on compost.

Photo Album of DC school garden compost systems

Cornell Waste Management Institute created a booklet filled with compost designs. It includes what materials you need and instructions to construct the design. Click here to view 10 different compost designs!

Growing Gardens from Garbage sells insulated compost bins for cold weather composting and describes how to build an insulated compost bin.

These school composting pages were compiled as a senior project for the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California Santa Cruz by Savannah Rugg a senior intern with Life Lab.