Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Clark, Maribeth

Area of Concentration

Environmental Studies

Abstract

My thesis project regards the creation of the University of New Mexico’s Compost Initiative (UNMCI), a newly emerging compost program that has been decades in the making. This was made possible through the partnership with UNM’s Sustainability Studies Program, Lobo Gardens, and UNM Recycling. The UNMCI offers an efficient, resilient on-campus solution to organic food waste management and fosters environmentally friendly loci of control. While compost programs and the action of composting hold fundamental value, our current society presents challenges, some of which are cognitive blocks concerning willingness to engage with sustainability efforts, such as composting, and other greater than self (or Object) actions. In my thesis, I will discuss the philosophical aspects of cultural difference, the idea of the natural as intuitive systems, in relation to the rejection of life-affirming acts, and environmental racism, and the ecology of death in connection with the development process of the UNMCI. Compost is a radical life-affirming act, with the ability to create a closed-loop system that in itself, is naturally sustainable and nurturing to our environment and its inhabitants, us.

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