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.
I really like the compost container idea, usable by everyone at college. I’d like to see a similar device used at my place of work. Given how many people who have fruit or snacks, the waste could easily be composted.
the compost container idea is indeed very good…the maintainence is easy and so esy the less amount of waste disposed…more colleges should adopt this concept
It sounds like they took a step backward by abandoning the re-usable containers. Maybe it would be better if students could buy there own re-usable container if they wanted so people have a choice and it doesn’t cost the college so much.
Another benefit in getting your food in the to-go box right off the bat, lies in weight control. I bet most people don’t think of this when ordering their food as take out.
It may not be so prevalent in colleges, but restaurants are notorious for their over sized portions. Ordering your meal with a to go box makes it easy to split one huge meal into two or three smaller meals for consumption at home, saving more calories than if you eat the whole meal while sitting in the restaurant!