Georgia Gwinnett College program turns food waste into fresh produce

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - A metro Atlanta college has found a way to make its campus more sustainable while also giving back to those in need. A Georgia Gwinnett College student started the program called Roots to Shoots to help address food needs, food waste, and food production issues.

The dining hall at Georgia Gwinnett College is one of the busiest places on campus, serving more than 3,000 meals every day for the 11,000 students.

"I eat at the dining hall all the time. And I see that, you know, kids don't always finish their meals. They throw it in the trash," Georgia Gwinnett College senior Stephen Johnson said.

That stuck out to the senior environmental science major. So, he decided to do something about it.

Georgia Gwinnett College senior Stephen Johnson

"We started a cyclical program. And this program takes our waste, breaks it down into soil, and then we use it to create new produce that will then be put back into the dining hall," he said. "So we're not polluting the environment, We're not, you know, over you know, we're not producing a lot of waste. We're bringing down our waste by recycling it, by creating new produce."

Johnson brought the idea to Biology professor James Russell as a concept for a capstone project. He calls it the Roots to Shoots program.

"You know, these students are environmental science majors. They want to be environmental science majors because they want to do something good. And this is one way of doing something good, you know, taking food waste, turning it into good soil. It's like taking a negative and turning it into a positive," Russell said.

The program has really taken off, bringing on eight to 10 student volunteers to help with the micro-farm.

"And it's working. The best thing about it was that it wasn't just a class project. It's a program that has started and it's continued beyond the classroom now," Russell said.

Their efforts don't end with creating compost and using it to plant crops. They also want to make sure what they are growing is helping others.

"We donate to the Lawrenceville Cooperative Food Bank. We have a GGC food care pantry that we have future plans on. Hopefully, we could donate there. And, you know, it could help. It can help everybody on this campus that needs any help," Keaton Hartfield said.

Hartfield is a sophomore studying environmental science. One of his teachers recommended he join the Roots to Shoots program.

"Working on a micro-farm really gave me a sense of purpose because when I first came here, I didn't know my major at all. And then when I started working on the micro-farm, I already knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life," he said.

There are also plans to expand the program even further in the future.

"So we need a bigger compost unit to deal with the amount of food waste we're dealing with and the soil we're creating. And we want to expand it to the community. We also want to offer compost to the community. We want to offer value-added products. You know, like if we make some GGC Salsa for instance, or something like that, have like a farmer's market," Russell said.

It's a way of making the campus more sustainable, while also giving back to the entire community.

"You always have to start with the roots. You have to start with the soil. And so that's what we're doing right now. And I'm looking forward to the shoots. I'm looking forward to the produce." Russell said.

"What I tell people is, you know, we have this one environment, and we need to take care of it. It has been taking care of us and we need to take care of it as well," Johnson said.

Johnson said he hopes the program will continue to grow after he graduates, and he also would like to see it catch on at other colleges as well.