Washington College

Center for Environment & Society


Operating Manager: Chris Rainer

Location: behind the LFC

Driving Time: Approximately 2 minutes.

Additional Staff: The dedicated employees of Dining Services and the volunteers of the Student Environmental Alliance (SEA).

Directions from WC

Walk past Building and Grounds, toward the trees.

Composting comes to Washington College

The WC composting program was established in Fall 2005.

The Composting Program

A Brief History of Composting

"A knowing farmer, Midas-like, can convert everything he touches into manure, as the first transmutation towards gold." —G. Washington (1785)

George Washington was not only a revolutionary leader, but a revolutionary farmer, and one of the first in the nation to publicly promote the use of compost to improve soil quality. One could even refer to him as the "Composter in Chief." Washington had a vested interest in conservation, and tried to put those concerns into practice at Mount Vernon. He asked his workers to "rake, and scrape up all the trash, of every sort and kind about the houses" and put it into his compost pile, then called a stercorary. Researchers have excavated a structure at Mount Vernon built for the specific purpose of housing the compost pile.

Following the tradition of George Washington, we at Washington College have implemented a composting program, initiated by Sustainability Intern Mike Hardesty '05 and Groundskeeper Bob Begley in Fall 2005. With the help of the entire Dining Hall staff, scraps from breakfast and from food prep are collected in our modern composting bins. Hopefully, once students learn what can and cannot go into the compost bins, we'll be able to expand the program to include all three meals.

At the end of each day the bins are collected and transported to the composting site at Building and Grounds, currently maintained by Groundskeeper Chris Rainer. The first pile was so successful that we started a second pile to keep up with the quantity of scraps from the dining hall. The first pile was applied to the campus grounds this past fall, behind Smith and in front of Miller Library. The second continues to decompose rapidly and will be ready in a few months. In the meantime it is maintained with the assistance of volunteers from the Student Environmental Alliance, who turn the pile and test it for important soil nutrients.

George Washington also advocated experimenting with compost, and often discussed his experiments in his records. The College continued the tradition by using the compost as a source of samples for the microbial ecology class of Professor Verville last spring. The class examined the samples for signs of life, and compared samples from the older compost pile to the new.

The Composter in Chief knew the importance of agriculture in the new nation, and carried out his compost program in the interest of benefiting the entire country. Composting keeps food from going to waste, provides a learning opportunity for students, and improves the quality of the soil on campus, bringing Washington College one step closer to sustainability. The sustainability efforts at WC benefit not only the college, but the entire Chestertown community and the Eastern Shore environment in which we live.

Sites of Interest

Special arrangements for long-term research or thesis projects available. Also opportunities for student volunteers.

Possibilities for Science/Environmental Studies Classes

300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown, Maryland 21620 | 410-778-2800 | 800-422-1782