The College Greening: Dining Friendly

In my first two editions of the College Greening I covered some of the ways colleges are cutting down on energy costs and heading to the eco-friendly side of life. I have already addressed the novelty of paper-less papers and new “Green” campus buildings, now I’m moving on to one of the most important buildings on campus- the dining hall.

At its busiest between the hours of noon and 1:00pm, and 5:00 and 6:00pm, our current dining hall is positively packed, making finding a place to eat, much less a place to eat with friends, near impossible. One of the ways my friends and I have found to do this is to take our food to-go. The to-go option at my school is not a new one. We check in to the dining hall and request a to-go box, grab food, and head out to the lounge or back to the room. The concept works well, especially with papers due.

But for the past few years this system has undergone various re-vamps in container styles. It started with reusable plastic Tupperware-like containers students picked up at the beginning of the year and used throughout the semester to take food. It cut down on container waste and made food easier to store. But about two years ago this system was abandoned for cheaper polystyrene containers, much like those found at fast-food places. This caused a campus-wide uproar amongst the student body. These new containers were not nearly as stable or useful as the former plastic ones and contributed largely to the growing amount of waste our campus created. In an attempt to placate the student body, biodegradable cardboard containers were recently introduced in place of the Styrofoam. While these are an improvement from the Styrofoam, I still dislike the amount of waste they leave. In all, I find that going to eat on off-hours not only makes finding a place to sit easier, it also reduces waste through the use of actual dishes, abandoning containers all together.

Our dining hall also has other eco-friendly benefits, such as a compost container set up and taken care of by our Student Environmental Alliance (SEA). Any biodegradable plant waste is thrown into the compost bin- complete with a chart of biodegradable materials- rather than the trash. The bin is emptied nightly into the compost heap behind our maintenance building and turned once a week.

The eventual soil from the heap is then used partially in campus beautification such as nurturing newly-planted bushes or trees, but also in the SEA garden, which grows its own vegetables and flowers.

Both of these ideas are easily adapted to the household environment, both through compost and reusable containers. So ditch the Styrofoam plates and plastic cups and go for washable, reusable eat-ware, or if you can’t, be aware of what you do use to transport food. Cutting out a little waste goes a long way.