By Liz Allocco, Columbia University 2011
When thinking about sustainable food on college campuses, it’s important to consider not only where the food is coming from and how it is made, but what happens after it leaves the kitchen. Here at Columbia University in New York City, a group of students has been working with the university dining services to try and reduce waste in our dining hall by getting students to take only what they can eat. Not only does this reduce the amount of uneaten food that goes into landfills, but it also increases the amount of food that can be donated to various programs in the city. As a country, we shouldn’t be throwing out what others could be eating, not after we’ve spent the energy growing and distributing and cooking it—especially when there are people so close by who are hungry.
I’m in my second year at Columbia, and I’ve been a member of the Eco-Reps for both. We are a student group sponsored by the Housing department and work as environmental RAs. This year we have really taken over the plate scrapings that happen at least once every month. The Eco-Reps set up a table in front of the conveyor belt and ask students to dump their leftover food into one bucket, their drinks into another, and their paper waste into a third. We weigh the containers when they are full and use the numbers to track the amount of waste that we produce. Last Thursday night, there were 167 pounds of solid waste, 59 ponds of liquid waste, and 17 pounds of paper waste for about 1000 people who went through the dining hall. 
It’s always interesting to stand behind the table and watch the students bring up their plates. They walk by us when they enter, so they know that we will be there on their way out, and by now they know the basic routine. When we first started, there were a few people who refused to scrape their food into the buckets and argued that they paid for their meal plan with the expectation that their dishes would be cleaned for them. Some tried to leave their plate on the table and sneak away without any of us noticing.
Fortunately, this has been happening less and less, and more people have been stopping to ask what we are doing and why we are doing it. We tell them that we want to see how much food students waste so we can try and figure out ways to decrease it. We also want to have some idea of how much waste we will have to put into a composting system that hopefully will be up and running next year (another huge effort by some very dedicated students).
I hope that when we do these plate scrapings, students don’t see it as just an inconvenience, but right now that might be its greatest value. There is only one place to dump their waste so the Eco-Reps get a little bit backed up when a large group of people decide to leave the dining hall at once. I hope that while they are waiting in line, students stop to think for a moment about why they are waiting. If everybody had less waste, it wouldn’t take as long to get up to the table and hand in their dishes. Also, the buckets filled with half-eaten sandwiches and milky cereal aren’t very pretty, and maybe having to contribute to that will make students think about taking only as much as they can eat next time. 
We want students to realize how much food is wasted when they take more then they can eat. Just because there is a seemingly endless quantity of food to take doesn’t mean that you should. Part of eating sustainably is only producing what you can reasonably consume. In doing so you not only reduce the amount of waste that you produce, but you leave more for other people. Most students don’t realize that the university freezes what is left at the end of the meal and gives it to City Harvest, who distributes it to community food programs across the city. Columbia donates about 300 pounds of food every week. City Harvest can only accept trays of food that have not been opened and put out in the dining hall, though. If students only take what they can eat then dining will have to put out fewer trays of food, and more can be donated to those who don’t have the luxury of being able to waste anything.
One of the dangers of doing plate scrapings on a regular basis is that students get used to it and stop thinking about what that purpose of them is. I also don’t want students to react negatively to sustainability efforts on campus because they have to wait in line. I am curious if other schools have tried similar campaigns to reduce food waste and how they have fared. Have you successfully reduced waste? We are seeing some small improvements. What have you done to make the experience positive and informative for students who may not be involved in green groups or think about sustainability on a regular basis?
Whatever it is, thanks for putting in the time and effort, and good luck!
By Liz Allocco, Columbia University 2011
When thinking about sustainable food on college campuses, it’s important to consider not only where the food is coming from and how it is made, but what happens after it leaves the kitchen. Here at Columbia University in New York City, a group of students has been working with the university dining services to try and reduce waste in our dining hall by getting students to take only what they can eat. Not only does this reduce the amount of uneaten food that goes into landfills, but it also increases the amount of food that can be donated to various programs in the city. As a country, we shouldn’t be throwing out what others could be eating, not after we’ve spent the energy growing and distributing and cooking it—especially when there are people so close by who are hungry.
I’m in my second year at Columbia, and I’ve been a member of the Eco-Reps for both. We are a student group sponsored by the Housing department and work as environmental RAs. This year we have really taken over the plate scrapings that happen at least once every month. The Eco-Reps set up a table in front of the conveyor belt and ask students to dump their leftover food into one bucket, their drinks into another, and their paper waste into a third. We weigh the containers when they are full and use the numbers to track the amount of waste that we produce. Last Thursday night, there were 167 pounds of solid waste, 59 ponds of liquid waste, and 17 pounds of paper waste for about 1000 people who went through the dining hall.
It’s always interesting to stand behind the table and watch the students bring up their plates. They walk by us when they enter, so they know that we will be there on their way out, and by now they know the basic routine. When we first started, there were a few people who refused to scrape their food into the buckets and argued that they paid for their meal plan with the expectation that their dishes would be cleaned for them. Some tried to leave their plate on the table and sneak away without any of us noticing.
Fortunately, this has been happening less and less, and more people have been stopping to ask what we are doing and why we are doing it. We tell them that we want to see how much food students waste so we can try and figure out ways to decrease it. We also want to have some idea of how much waste we will have to put into a composting system that hopefully will be up and running next year (another huge effort by some very dedicated students).
I hope that when we do these plate scrapings, students don’t see it as just an inconvenience, but right now that might be its greatest value. There is only one place to dump their waste so the Eco-Reps get a little bit backed up when a large group of people decide to leave the dining hall at once. I hope that while they are waiting in line, students stop to think for a moment about why they are waiting. If everybody had less waste, it wouldn’t take as long to get up to the table and hand in their dishes. Also, the buckets filled with half-eaten sandwiches and milky cereal aren’t very pretty, and maybe having to contribute to that will make students think about taking only as much as they can eat next time.
We want students to realize how much food is wasted when they take more then they can eat. Just because there is a seemingly endless quantity of food to take doesn’t mean that you should. Part of eating sustainably is only producing what you can reasonably consume. In doing so you not only reduce the amount of waste that you produce, but you leave more for other people. Most students don’t realize that the university freezes what is left at the end of the meal and gives it to City Harvest, who distributes it to community food programs across the city. Columbia donates about 300 pounds of food every week. City Harvest can only accept trays of food that have not been opened and put out in the dining hall, though. If students only take what they can eat then dining will have to put out fewer trays of food, and more can be donated to those who don’t have the luxury of being able to waste anything.
One of the dangers of doing plate scrapings on a regular basis is that students get used to it and stop thinking about what that purpose of them is. I also don’t want students to react negatively to sustainability efforts on campus because they have to wait in line. I am curious if other schools have tried similar campaigns to reduce food waste and how they have fared. Have you successfully reduced waste? We are seeing some small improvements. What have you done to make the experience positive and informative for students who may not be involved in green groups or think about sustainability on a regular basis?
Whatever it is, thanks for putting in the time and effort, and good luck!