thats awesome. Congrats!

I just read there is one ingredient of normal pesticides that stunts next generation plant growth

The best case scenario would be to get them to switch to organic care! but youre already making HUGE progress.

What is your compost going to be used for? a community veg garden? nourishing the campus decorative plantings? Maybe you can use the leaf and food waste for food gardens, and grass and reclaimed paper to mulch the decorative beds?

you won't find a method to remove chemicals from organic material, unless you have a lab w/ some pretty fancy equipment - the only thing that could remotely be a problem is the grass clippings the first cutting after application of a 'weed n feed' type product - otherwise chem fertilizers aren't a problem as they're only used by the grass if it needs the nutrients, and in the clippings will be indistinguishable from nutrients derived from 'organic' sources - same w/ the veg waste really, there should be no harmful residues in anything they're feeding you, so they won't be a problem for the compost

the great thing about the composting process is that it's "bio-remediation", the same as is done w/ environmental spills of things like petro chems - the microbial population in a good compost pile [active hot composting] will break down nearly anything, not just nitrogen and carbon - nothing will cause trouble for your compost pile, or find it's way into your garden, unless the grounds crew uses persistent pesticides somewhere, and you can ask that they keep you aware of that, and maybe even ask that they seperate out any material that that type of product has been used on recently, but I'd expect in a public setting like that they're restricted to products approved for general use that have a pretty short life in the environment

that said, if you want to be "certified" organic, than you can't use any of that stuff! it comes down to are you trying to meet somebodies standards, or are you trying to demonstrate sustainable, non-chemical processes - I compost all the produce waste from a local natural foods store, much of which is certified organic, but at various times of the year there's always stuff that's only available from commercial producers, so they stock that - works for me, and the compost it makes saves me buying any chem ferts

it's a good thing you're proposing, for it's educational value, so maybe you should just consider that folks are eating the food the school serves, and sitting/laying on the grass the clippings come from, and have faith that neither are a problem in that respect, so won't be more of a problem in your compost!

Bill

In response to the question about what the purpose of the garden is for: It is an effort to raise awareness of sustainable organic gardening education efforts in africa to help small villages learn to use natural sustainable means both because chemicals are bad for long term agriculture and because no one besides the employees at Monsanto want to see GMOs make their way into impoverished areas. It's just not fair to people in poverty to be forcing self terminating seeds and expensive chemical pesticides on them. This garden will be a hands on tool to both raise awareness on campus and reach out to the local community by establishing a presence at local farmers markets and other environmentally concerned businesses.

Mufonix:
Are you in touch with the Biointensive gardening folks in California (Jon Jeavons, Bountiful Gardens, etc)? They've done a lot of work in third world countries to help communities produce their own organic food.
-O

The foods will most likely have pesticide, and maybe even herbicide, residue but they will still be organic for most people except the strictest interpreters. Most of these residues will be dissipated during the composting process and since these materials are so pervasive in todays world it would be really difficult for most people to find foods that did not have some residue.

As far as I remember, the OFFICIAL USDA organic certification standards allows the use of non-organic material in a compost pile. The resulting compost is officially organic.

I wouldn't worry at all 'bout the food wastes, nor the non-organic fertilizers on the grass. The 'cides, however, are a horse of a different color (or a horse's arse of a different color). Yes, some will eventually "bioremediate", but I wouldn't want my garden to be the waste processing center for 'cides.

I'd recommend to avoid the grass clippin's if they been spray in the last few months.

JMHO.

Peace,
- Sequoia

The one persistent chemical used on lawns that emerges unchanged from community composting operations is Clopyralid. As far as I know, every other organic is bioremediated by the (hot) composting process.

For third world countries that don't have the magnitude of waste that we do in the U.S., John Jeavons and others recommend growing cover crops. Google ATTRA for some useful publications on cover cropping.

If your groundskeepers are using Clopyralid, you can present them with alternatives. San Francisco and other cities have stopped using herbicides and pesticides routinely. Some city-managed golf courses that want to use them are required to apply for one-time use permits and have good reasons for using them. You may want to investigate some of these policies and work toward getting your college to use these kinds of best management practices.

Cornell, which is usually about as reliable as we are going to find, reports that Clopyralid residuals "seem to be [found]" even in compost that does not contain grass clippings.

You say you are at some college. Have you considered finding someone who can get a grant to study bioremediation of Clopyralid? This is a far out suggestion but someone could make a name for themselves in this area.

I just came across the following article about a company in Arkansas that has been trying to get large amounts of garbage to show that its proprietary mix of microbes can bioremediate anything. They've successfully removed chlordane from a couple sites.

http://greenyes.grrn.org/2001/07/msg00032.html

"It is an effort to raise awareness of sustainable organic gardening education efforts in africa to help small villages learn to use natural sustainable means"

Mufonix, (if that's your real name, lol) would you like to teach those villagers how to grow vegetables the easiest, cheapest way I know of? I've been gardening and reading about gardening for 34 years now and I haven't come across a better way? The Mulch Method eliminates tilling, hoeing, and weeding, permanently. You also Never have to buy fertilizers or soil conditioners, but it will transform the worst soil in the world into the best. It is really the method that nature's used for humdreds of millions of years.
(A fact that astounds people, did me when I first read it, os that the worst soil on our planet is found in rain forests, like the Amazon Jungle! The huge amount of rain that falls washed most nutrients out of the soil eons ago. The only reason such incredible growh occurs there is that nature is continually mulching. There's a constant rain of leaves, branches, entire trees, animal wastes, and other organic matter onto the soil. Plants' roots absorb the nutrients as as quickly as decompostion makes them available.)

If you wanted to garden by the mulch method, here is how you would proceed:
1. Place the vegetable wastes you mentioned, I assume from the school kitchen?, on the soil first. That material is likely to attract flies and other pests.
2.Then cover those materials with grass clippings, with or without leaves mixed in. (Always water before you apply new mulch, so it can "lock in" the moisture. Then try not to wet it till it's had a chance to dry out. It wouldn't hurt the plants one bit, but wetting it might increase the chances of it devoloping an odor.)
3. Never "till under" the mulch, just keep adding more, month after month, year after year. It will decompose just fine by itself, releasing all the nutrients your plants need.
You don't even need to dig out any existing weeds, or any that might be in the garden next spring, cause the mulch will have thinned out considerably over the winter. Just trample any weeds flat and cover them with at least a 3-inch layer of clippings.

On your question about whether chemicals used on the college's lawns would cause harm, I spoke to someone at the Unviversity of Oregon several years ago. At the time at least, they were doing consulting work for the EPA. And the person I spoke to said that many things would have to happen for any residual chemicals to cause harm to anyone who ate the vegetables- the chemicals would have to be very resistant to biodegradation, have to be absorbed by the plants in large quantities, have to not be altered in any way by the plants' biochemical processess, and be consumed by someone in large quantities. (It's a simple, sad fact that we are all walking chemical soups. For instance, every person whose blood is tested is found to have fire retardent in them! The plastic in the computers we're using to communicate has retardant, which passses into the air and into us.)
I also see from your Page that you live in California. I'm 99% sure the chemcial Clopyralid that someone mentioned has been banned in our state. The herbicides still in use may not pose any danger at all?
I've also come up with two things over the years that lets you grow a lot more in less space. While they require materials for trellises that poor villagers probably couldn't afford, you might be able to help poor people right here in our country to grow more food in less space? The materials would more than pay for themselves in increased yields the very first year. I don't know how to post pics or links to them, since I am "puter challenged." So if you are interested, or have questions, plesae e-mail me.
Tyrell in Sacramento

I agree with looking into Bountiful Gardens, I try to buy a few seeds from them each year since they do neat research!

It sounds like a great idea to get people interested in sustainable ag. Im thinking along the lines of Habitat_Gardener- the US has more food waste, and bothers with things like lawn. Even if your regions are vastly different, you could explain the differences (We use leaves, dryland farmers would use xeric grasses...)

I do NOT lay on my University grass- its emerald green and perfect, and has the little warning flags most of the time!

Definitely check out John Jeavons books and Ecology Action's biointensive website.

Garnetmoth touch on the main thing you need to keep in mind. Farming conditions in the regions of the world vary and will vary considerably in climate and soil. What will not vary is that most thirld world villages won't have access to tons of grass clippings from a University lawn nor dumpsters full of half-eaten Big Macs.

Key to being sustainable is to produce as much as possible that goes into the garden of farm plot yourself. In an area where women are sent out to search for hours for twigs to build a small cooking fire, it's unlikely they will be able to mow lawns and rake up mountains of clippings. Since even twigs may be in short supply, it's unlikely that heaps of leaves will suddenly appear each fall.

Point being, you are interested in sustainablility, and what may be sustainable on a University campus or a yard in Sacramento or a garden plot in the Adirondacks is likely to be doomed to failure in a vastly different environment.

Your project has value in that it can serve to illustrate one of the many methods of reaching a sustainable agriculture. It may be helpful to look at some of the programs that are doing some site-specific field work, such as Ecology Action.

Wayne in the Adks.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ecology Action

Admire your willingness to undertake such a projet. I think getting your college to get away from herbicides and pesticides would be a great adjunct to it. Am sure you have much to do already, so I might enlist friends or professors to advocate to the administration to "go green". Best of luck with your garden ... and with classes.