ASUCLA approves initiatives for composting, microbead ban

Associated Students UCLA is set to change the way it handles waste and the products it buys as a result of two environmental initiatives approved by the ASUCLA Board of Directors Friday.

Beginning Sept. 1, all ASUCLA restaurants in association facilities, like Ackerman Union, will compost their kitchen waste, said Karen Noh, ASUCLA director of special projects. She added the mandated composting will not extend to ASUCLA restaurants in university facilities, such as Untitled, Café, and will be voluntary for third-party restaurants, like Panda Express and Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill.

The board also passed a ban on products that contain microbeads, such as some types of toothpaste and skin exfoliants, which some say contribute to water pollution and harm marine life.

The added expenses of composting could range anywhere from $14,000 to $29,000 annually, Noh said. She said the costs include additional hauling to pay for a separate truck to pick up the compost and signs to mark the compost bins.

Noh said the association is shifting to composting from sending the waste to landfills to comply with a University mandate to divert 95 percent of its landfill waste by 2020.

UCLA currently diverts 66 percent of its waste, with ASUCLA contributing to about 10 percent of that total, Noh said.

ASUCLA currently diverts 28 percent of its waste in general and composts kitchen waste at the Court of Sciences Student Center. The association also diverts waste through recycling and incineration.

Noh said she thinks composting is the best way for ASUCLA to divert its landfill waste since a large part of ASUCLA’s waste stream is food scraps and mixed paper.

Noh said ASUCLA will also pilot consumer composting at Lu Valle Commons, and switch to noncompostable food containers at Greenhouse in order to shift money and resources to Lu Valle. She said the association chose Lu Valle because its trash stream is less varied and its compost bins are less likely to be contaminated.

She added ASUCLA will be working with the undergraduate student government facilities commission and other organizations, including student affairs officers at the various academic departments, to inform customers to use the new compost bins.

“The big challenge with customer composting is that it’s tough to get people to put the right things in the right bins,” she said. “My sense is the board feels the general public is now familiar enough with the concept and will be able to execute it more effectively as more municipalities like Santa Monica adopt composting.”

The pilot project in Lu Valle will gauge how well students are able to sort their trash. Some students at UCLA think they will able to do so.

Vikrant Tadepalli, a rising second-year biochemistry student, believes sorting out the trash won’t be a problem for UCLA, but believes that the cost will have the largest impact.

“With all the students eating so much food every day, it’s probably a good idea to deal with all the trash,” Tadepalli said. “ASUCLA has to see if it’s really worth the cost.”

In addition to mandating composting, the board introduced a ban on products that contain microbeads.

C.J. Gabbe, chair of the ASUCLA Finance Committee, said the committee began considering banning microbeads after an honors collegium class presented to ASUCLA on the topic in March. Gabbe added ASUCLA would sell the items in stock before switching over to products that do not have microbeads.

He said he thinks finding replacements should be fairly easy as most products have replacements in the same brands.

Bob Williams, the ASUCLA executive director, estimated that the stores could lose up to $1,000 in revenue if some customers are not willing to switch over to alternative products.

The new composting measures will begin Sept. 1, and products without microbeads will appear on shelves after the current products in stock are sold.