Campus Life
green perspectives
Composting at MIT
Here in Cambridge and at MIT, literally tons of waste are thrown away every day, filling our landfills and generating methane and carbon emissions when they could be generating value for our communities. Recent data from the EPA shows that people in the United States generate on average 4.4 pounds (2 kg) of trash per person every day. Approximately 65 percent of this ends up in a landfill, resulting in 160 million tons added to our landfills — enough to cover the entire area of Cambridge, Massachusetts with over 75 feet of garbage — every year.