This story was partially published in The Cougar Chronicle’s Volume 1 Issue 3 magazine. 

Central Kitsap High School’s Environmental Club has reincorporated composting into the student body’s daily lunchtime routine. The club’s leaders collaborated with CKHS administration to make the composting program vision a reality and further work towards reinstating a community garden on campus grounds when the idea was officially brought to the table in September 2023.

“This compost is specifically meant for the garden we’re trying to start up later this year,” said Environmental Club leader and CKHS senior Jackson Moyer. “Without the previous compost, we saw people just throwing away things that could be used or reutilized, and we wanted to fix that problem and reduce waste.”

Environmental Club adviser and CKHS science teacher Kaitlin Caylor helped to organize the composting process, supplementing the research conducted by Environmental Club leaders about the science behind composting to create soil.

“We have a bin down in the lunchroom and after students finish their lunch, they can throw different food materials in there,” said Caylor. “Things like fruits, vegetables, napkins…and then at the end of third lunch, we have one of our Environmental Club members take the bin in the lunchroom to the big composting bin that’s outside.”

The composting bin, which receives and contains all lunch compost, is rotated on a weekly basis to spin and facilitate the breakdown of the materials.

“Right now in the compost bin we have a base where we’re looking for a specific ratio of nitrogen-rich components, which is a lot of yard waste and that type of material, so that base was already established in the composting bin,” said Moyer. “Now that we’re collecting food waste from lunches, we’re adding carbon and other things needed for fertilization of plants into the bin.”

With the program’s encouragement of reusing materials to eliminate waste, the Environmental Club aims to encourage engaging in eco-friendly practices. 

“Our goal is to bring awareness because we can do it at school as well as at home,” said Caylor. “The more people who compost, the more we can keep out of the landfill and we can recycle that back into the environment. The second goal is hopefully getting a school garden to see that entire process go full-circle from the compost to growing our own vegetables.”

This introduction of a campus garden will replace the former community garden that the Environmental Club was involved in by the Clear Creek Trail now that it has been removed due to safety concerns.

“Now, we are hopefully going to fill that hole in the community,” said Moyer. “The garden was a big donator of locally grown food sources to the local food bank, so we want to fill that hole with another environmentally sustainable food production system with a campus garden.”

Locally-grown organic food produced from the garden will be donated to the Kitsap Food Bank, and the continuation of the composting program and care for the garden will work to increase student and club involvement in environmental community service.

Information about composting, both in the school and working to start composting at home, can be found with Environmental Club members or posters they have in the lunchroom to encourage composting for environmental sustainability and to achieve the ultimate goal of providing composted soil for the campus garden.