CPP Compost Club grows sustainability on campus
By Aadi Mehta, April 21, 2026
The Cal Poly Pomona Compost Club is turning food waste into nutrient-rich soil while changing how students think about sustainability.
According to the club’s myBAR page, the organization’s purpose is to educate and take action, with members constantly organizing events, collaborating with other sustainability groups and working with composting systems in the community.
Through initiatives such as waste collection and workshops, the organization aims to reduce food waste and show students how to apply composting in everyday life.
“It’s so nice to see that we’re actually physically doing things and making a positive change,” said civil engineering student and club president Ezequiel Hernandez. “We’ve definitely become a lot more busy than we were about a year ago, so establishing our presence has been really important.”
According to Hernandez, the club hosts biweekly meetings to ensure members are up to date on events and fundraisers. He said the club meets in Azusa once a month to help maintain a three-stage compost bin, a system where all the compost goes back into the community garden. At the site, students regularly sort and turn organic materials, ensuring proper conditions for decomposition.
Hernandez said at one point, the club’s future seemed uncertain. But, with more members and new ideas centered around sustainability, the club has grown significantly in the last year. This success, he said, must continue long term, so the club can be around for future students who want to get involved in sustainability efforts.
“It’s been great to watch the club grow, especially because I was there when it was struggling,” Hernandez said. “We want something long-standing that people on campus can actually use.”
A challenge for the club has always been explaining to students what composting means, especially since sustainability has many components to it, according to visual communication design student and club Creative Director Isabelle Woo. She said composting is not just throwing food away, but a controlled process of breaking down organic materials into usable soil.
In her role, Woo said she works on expanding the club’s social media presence by posting information about events and sharing photos so people can see what the club is doing. She is currently working on a fundraising event selling anthotype prints, which are eco-friendly photographs created with light-based liquid and crushed plant materials coated onto paper.
“Some people think they can just throw anything on the ground and that’s composting,” Woo said. “That’s not really how it works.”
According to National Geographic, 75% to 80% of household organic waste is now compostable into soil. This process mitigates climate change by reducing methane in landfills and restoring overall soil health.
The CPP Compost Club is working to prevent good food from ending up in landfills by turning it into something more beneficial.
“What’s now trash has become a resource,” said Eshwar Ravishankar, the club adviser and a plant science assistant professor. “There’s a real culture shift happening.”
Ravishankar said he wants composting to become a part of how CPP operates, not just as a club activity. However, he said this process requires more than just manual labor; it involves system-based thinking.
In the coming semesters, the CPP Compost Club hopes to install more worm composting systems to break down food waste into nutrient-rich soil and promote ways students can incorporate composting into daily life, such as properly disposing food scraps.
According to Hernandez, the biggest goal is to expand outreach among students, including off-campus activities, to build long-term sustainability systems that last beyond current students. He said this can help clear up misconceptions about composting and teach students how to do it the right way.
“It doesn’t take a huge amount of effort,” Hernandez said. “Anyone can do it.”
