The Composting Hospital

Maybe you know this already, but in case you don’t — composting is a form of natural recycling. Take natural materials like food scraps or leaves, and under specific circumstances, bacteria, fungi, or worms can decompose these materials into compost. People can then mix the compost into their soil to enrich their plants. How does this impact human health? Well, it cuts methane emissions — a greenhouse gas — from landfills. And composting improves soil health, which improves the health of the food we grow in that soil. It also saves water, because using compost in agriculture helps the soil retain more water, meaning farmers use less water to keep their plants growing. We don’t quite have that yet in Chicago, though through the city’s Food Scrap Drop-Off Program, you can drop off food at certain local libraries. (Check the show notes for the list of locations.) Since its launch in October 2023, nearly 8,000 households have diverted more than 1 million pounds of food waste from landfills.  At Rush University Medical Center on Chicago’s West Side, Ian Hughes, director of environmental sustainability, kicked off the medical center’s own composting program. In this episode, we hear more about that from Ian, in conversation with Chicago Health writer Dan Dean.   Guest: Ian Hughes, director of environmental sustainability at Rush University Medical Center   Related reading: From Trash to Treasure Healthy Yards, Healthy People