The Peddie Environmental and Sustainability Team (PEST), set up a composting bin in the dining hall on Wednesday, March 20. Club leader Dennis Zhang ’20 said, “composting was inspired by the surplus of food we waste on a daily basis at Peddie–an estimated 400 lbs every day. Other schools have implemented composting. There was no reason why Peddie couldn’t either.”

Months of planning went into the implementation of composting on campus. Zhang reported that the idea was proposed last year by Mimi Narayan ’21 who had experience with a composting company at her old school. “Things really picked up this year. The school was assessed, meetings with the company were organized and just recently were planned and carried out: putting the new service in effect and educating the community on how to use it properly,” Zhang said. To  educate the community on composting, PEST put together a skit during community meeting on the day the compost bin was introduced.

While this may be PEST’s most prominent initiative so far, the club has created a variety of other activities designed to raise awareness about environmental issues. When asked about PEST’s other activities, Zhang responded that “PEST sends a weekly environmental newsletter that includes a new environmental problem, a shocking statistic, ways individuals can get involved in solving the aforementioned issue, and an ‘enviro-meme’ just to make it a bit more fun to read. We also organize various initiatives and activities throughout the year, such as creating paper recycling boxes, educating prefects, and even opportunities to work with new politicians through a new program that we are connected with.”