This content was published: June 25, 2008. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
PCC's Rock Creek Campus wins recycling award
Photos and Story by James Hill
Portland Community College’s Rock Creek Campus has been called a model for recycling. Now, it also can be called an award-winning model for recycling.
The campus, 17705 N.W. Springville Road, was named “Recycler of the Year” in the
Education/Promotion division by the Association of Oregon Recyclers. The campus received the award for the vermi-composting, which has brought students and community members together and integrated recycling into the curriculum of several programs. Rock Creek is known for its avid recycling efforts through its Loop Program, which includes growing cafeteria food in campus gardens and vermi-composting cafeteria food scraps and returning nutrient rich worm castings to the garden soil. This practice creates a closed-loop system – the heart of sustainable practices.
“The Rock Creek Loop program lessens PCC’s carbon footprint by reducing the need for food importation via transportation and by diverting waste from the landfill,” said Alliyah Mirza, the college’s sustainable practices coordinator. “Additionally, it includes curricular components and class involvement.”
PCC’s Rock Creek Campus had one of the first vermi-composting programs in Washington County. It has gone on to influence the Washington County Cooperative Extension to use the practice in its Master Gardener and 4-H programs. This project won a $12,000 DEQ grant in late 2006 to buy the bin and worms, and PCC integrated its practices into the curriculum of chemistry, industrial arts and other classes. The closed-loop system takes pre-consumer cafeteria scrap, composts it and uses it in the garden to grow food to serve again in the cafeteria. According to Mirza, 650 pounds of food waste per month is being composted from the Rock Creek cafeteria by 40,000 worms residing in the worm bin.
For more information about this award or PCC’s recycling and sustainability efforts, call (503) 977-8581.
About James Hill
James G. Hill, an award-winning journalist and public relations writer, is the Director of Public Relations at Portland Community College. A graduate of Portland State University, James has worked as a section editor for the Newberg Graphic... more »