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Leftover food, compost doesn't spoil student's research

April 29, 2009

By Sean Doerre
Reporter

The smell is not great, and the pay is not much either, but senior Robert Kent enjoys what he does.

The Dallas native has spent the last few months of his college career at Baylor spearheading a campaign to test the viability of a campuswide compost program.

The project was the brainchild of Kent, an undergraduate representative of the university sustainability committee, who approached committee members Carl Flynn, Dave Thiel and Sascha Usenko with his proposal early last semester.

"He has envisioned the whole thing. He has driven it. I will definitely commend him for that," said Carl Flynn, director of communications and marketing for university libraries. "Robert is an amazing kid. He has a passionate concern about the environment, but he also has intelligence about it. He sees the economic realities that bind sustainability and he tries to work within those to do what is best."

The proposal has spawned a test area behind the Ferrell Center, where Kent is disposing of about 100 pounds of food waste a day from Memorial Cafeteria with the goal of using the results from this pilot program to springboard larger action. Kent is monitoring the test to see how long the composting process takes and to check problem areas within the system.

"This project is really there to develop preliminary data to see if this type of research can be expanded and implemented for the university scale as a way of improving our sustainability," said Dr. Sascha Usenko, assistant professor of environmental sciences.

Kent is receiving class credit for his research through Usenko and the department's internship program, which allows students the opportunity to relate classroom learning to practice by providing experience in a hands-on environment.

The results from the early testing on composting will not be complete for another two weeks, but Kent said he hopes this project and his work on the committee will raise the rhetoric for sustainability efforts.

"I hope that it starts conversations on campus and I hope it gets students to think about environmental issues as something they should take action on in their lives," Kent said. "Not everyone has to be an environmental crusader. That is not what we are asking, but to get people to think about it and take a little action in their own lives is the end goal."

Kent said his love for nature started at a young age, when he spent at lot of the time outdoors hiking, camping and backpacking.

But he said it wasn't until he took a freshman-level environmental sciences course that the love for nature blossomed into a full out passion.

"I had an appreciation of nature to begin with, but when I started to learn a bit more about these problems and a bit more about how the environment works, I realized it is more than just protecting nature, it is actually protecting ourselves too," Kent said.

The problems, including the effects of climate change on the planet, prompted Kent to get involved in the university sustainability committee, which was created in 2007.

"We face some really big challenges ahead if we don't do anything to stop climate change now," Kent said. "(The environmental science course) put it in a very urgent tone for me, where it wasn't, 'Oh, well I will deal with that when I am older or in a couple years.' It is a now problem."

With his graduation in May, Kent is hoping to continue endeavors after college that promote a more sustainable planet.

"I am particularly interested in the environmental impacts of economic development," Kent said.

"There is a phrase, sustainable development, that gets tossed around a lot, but it is a field that I am really interested in. Basically looking at how developing countries can continue their economic progress without compromising their environment."

If his early success with composting on the university level is indication, a totally zero-waste planet is the limit for Robert Kent.

"I just think Robert has a vision for a better world and that is what drives him," Flynn said. "Not only just in composting and not just in sustainability, I think he has a vision for a way that we can all live better."

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