CIVE student Schaefer part of winning team

A team of Carleton engineering students has won $7,000 for coming up with a big idea for a sustainable future. The team took part in the Walmart Green Student Challenge, which tasked post-secondary students from schools across Canada to find and pitch innovative and green solutions for businesses.

The team, named the Carleton Composters, focused on an idea to keep food waste from reaching landfills using an innovative device called the Food Cycler. The device is capable of reducing food waste to as little as 10 per cent of its original mass. It then outputs a nutrient-rich, environmentally friendly fertilizer that can be sold back to consumers. As part of the proposal, the team came up with a viable business plan to make their solution workable for large companies.

After placing in the top three teams in an online vote, the Carleton Composters traveled to Toronto to pitch their ideas to a group of Canadian CEOs. The group, which included CEOs from Walmart, Google, Canadian National Railway, S.C. Johnson and Son, Ford Motor Company and Bullfrog Power, received the team’s idea positively and provided some constructive criticism.

“This challenge was a great learning experience that gave us the opportunity to showcase our green idea, and to meet other like-minded students as well as business people from across Canada,” said participant Taylor Schaefer. “A big thanks goes out to our professor, Kim Davis, for helping us along the way, as well as Brad Crepeau from Food Cycle Science.”