On any day of the week you’ll find Macquarie staff happily lunching on linguini puttanesca or honey-roast pumpkin salad at the Staff Café. But there are some other Macquarie residents that have also been chowing down on the café’s fare of late – the tiny creatures living in the University’s bio-research garden.
Thanks to a collaboration between the Staff Café and staff in the Department of Biological Sciences, food scraps and coffee grounds from the Café are now being recycled into compost for use in the garden, which provides a living research and learning space for staff and students in the Department.
The partnership came about in 2017, when Staff Café Head Chef and Manager Housien Koussan was looking at ways to reduce the amount of waste the Café was sending to landfill.
Approximately 33 per cent of food organics in Australian households is put in all-purpose garbage, with a large majority of this ending up in landfill. It is estimated that food organics contribute approximately three per cent of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions (particularly methane).
The Café now contributes 10 to 15 buckets of mixed kitchen scraps and coffee grounds to the bio-research garden each week.
The garden features raised garden beds, large compost pits and a worm farm, as well as being home to beehives currently being observed by Dr Andrew Barron and other researchers within Biological Sciences.
Biological Sciences technician Shaun Garvey, with compost bins in the department’s bio-research garden.
It is hoped that the other six Campus Life-managed food and beverage outlets on campus will soon join the Staff Café in recycling their organic waste, as Head of Campus Life Pete Boyle explains.
“Here at Campus Life we’re actively working on becoming a more sustainable business and increasing our sustainability rating, through the University’s Target: Better Futures initiative,” Pete says.
“We’re proud to have achieved bronze-level accreditation and we’re working towards Silver through encouraging more of these kinds of sustainability activities across the different parts of our business.”
The Staff Café is located at Level 3, 23 Wally’s Walk.
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