Inside the Grove – Larry J. Bell '80 Environmental Stewardship Center

Written by: Romina Viramontes-Vargas K’28, Environmental Stewardship Intern

You finish an apple, eat the last bite, and now you’re left holding the core. Trash? Not necessarily.

At K, that apple core has another place it can go: The Grove.

If you’ve never been there before or have absolutely no idea what we’re talking about, the Grove is the forested area between the Living Learning Houses, the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership and the Trowbridge parking lot. The entrance is near the stairs next to DeWaters Hall.

It might look like a small patch of woods from the outside, but there’s quite a bit happening back there. The Grove has been home to K’s on-campus Composting Program since 2009. It’s where you’ll find the composting shed, tools, compost piles, plenty of tiny organisms doing their part and, perhaps most importantly for students, green buckets.

We’ll come back to those.

First, what exactly is composting? Basically, composting gives food scraps and other organic material another purpose instead of simply sending them to the trash. Over time, that material breaks down and becomes nutrient-rich compost that can be returned to the soil.

And apparently, K has quite a bit to compost.

During the 2025–2026 academic year, 5,712 pounds were composted right here on campus. Another 39,126 pounds went through K’s commercial composting program. That’s 44,838 pounds altogether!

Wooden sign that says "Welcome to the Grove"

K uses two different systems because on-campus and commercial composting don’t work exactly the same way. The compost managed at the Grove is processed here by the student Composting Crew, while commercial compost is collected by My Green Michigan and taken to their commercial composting facility in Lansing (learn more about My Green Michigan in this post!). The difference also means the two systems can accept different things. So unfortunately, throwing something into a compost bin does not automatically make it compostable. Putting the wrong items in can contaminate the compost and leave someone having to sort through everything by hand. In other words: check before you chuck.

Now, back to those green buckets. If you’ve been to the Grove before, you might have noticed shelves filled with them. And if you assumed they needed to stay there, we have some good news.

You can take them home. Seriously!!!

K students, faculty and staff can pick up a clean green bucket from the Grove, take it home, fill it with food scraps and bring it back when it’s full. When you return it, you can exchange it for another clean bucket and start again. So even if you live somewhere without a compost pile conveniently sitting in the backyard, you can still compost your food waste through K. And taking home a bucket isn’t the only way students can get involved.

Need a PE credit? There’s composting for that too.

K offers PED-128: Composting during the fall and spring terms, giving students a chance to help with the program while learning more about food waste, composting and the environment along the way. But if taking an entire class about compost isn’t quite your thing, there are also events at the Grove.

Students shoveling dirt and compost in a wooded area

And the next one involves smashing pumpkins.

Halloween is coming up, which means pumpkins are about to appear everywhere. Maybe you carve one. Maybe you give it a name and become emotionally attached to it.

But eventually, November comes around, and that pumpkin has to go somewhere. Instead of throwing it away, bring it to the Grove! On Wednesday, November 4 from 4–6 p.m., the Compost Crew and Office of Student Activities will host a pumpkin smashing event where students can bring their old pumpkins and give them a much more exciting ending while contributing to the composting process.

It’s fun, slightly chaotic, and a lot better than letting your pumpkin slowly collapse outside your door. And in a way, that’s what makes the Grove interesting. It takes something most of us don’t think much about and makes that process visible. Food waste doesn’t magically disappear when it reaches the trash can. It still has to go somewhere. At the Grove, some of that waste gets a second life.

You don’t have to know anything about composting to participate. You don’t need to take the PE class or join the Composting Crew. You can start as simply as walking over to the Grove and picking up a green bucket.

Because yes, one more time for the people in the back: You really can take the green buckets home.