CONWAY, Ark. (Nov. 25, 2008) – Hendrix College student Matt Youngblood will be discussing his Odyssey trip to San Francisco where he studied the creation of a food scrap composting program.
Youngbood, a junior from Rogers, will be speaking as part of the college’s Odyssey Exemplars series at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday in Mills B, located inside the Mills Center on Hendrix’s campus.
In the San Francisco Bay area, restaurants and residents are given a bin to collect food scraps, including meats, fats, vegetables, and grains. These bins are collected daily and taken to the Jepson Prairie Organics facility in Vacaville, where they are processed and put in a compost pile. Matt Youngblood traveled to the Jepson facility to learn how their municipal composting system became successful. He also interviewed Dr. Ruihong Zhang at UC Davis about her innovative research into anaerobic composting to collect methane to generate electricity. Finally, he explored the possibility of establishing a similar food scrap composting program with local officials and environmental interest groups.
Hendrix, founded in 1876, is a selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2008 edition of the Princeton Review America’s Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, contact Mark Scott at scottm@hendrix.edu or 501-450-1462.