Make Haste, Reduce the Waste Cover Sheet

The Pennsylvania State University food services association on the University Park campus serves as the target audience for this essay. As an active member of the student body, I address the positive implications of researching and instituting further methods of waste reduction. I hope this piece motivates the campus dining association to implement a variety of different food conservation practices that will promote sustainability on campus while shedding a positive light on the University. This essay takes the format of a letter addressed to the director of residential dining, Lisa Wandel and all of the dining commons employees.

Corinne Renner CAS 138T Professor Pisani Babich April 1, 2013

Make Haste, Reduce the Waste I cringe every time my friends leave food on their plates in the dining hall. They know how much food waste bothers me, and in a pathetic attempt to hide their leftovers, they throw a napkin over their plate or double layer their dishes. Theyre fooling no one. Many college students, like my friends, disregard this excess food as soon as they return their trays. Out of sight, out of mind. Once my peers return their trays, food waste becomes the dining hall staffs problem. As campus employees, in collaboration with residence life, you all work diligently every day to accommodate Penn State students and provide a safe, healthy, and hospitable dining environment. The large amount of nutrition pamphlets and variety of made-to-order options attests to your genuine interest in the well being of each and every student. And while advocating and providing healthy food options definitely encourages nutritious eating habits, you should definitely place more emphasis on sustainable practices for removing and reducing food waste. Campus food services already provides an assortment of colored bins in every dining commons for recycling paper, plastic, and foam containers. A wastebasket for food items that will later serve as compost also sits near these receptacles. All of these measures promote sustainable dining habits, but they depend on the actions and

participation of the student body. As members of the campus dining association, you should implement and encourage additional ways to reduce and more efficiently handle food waste. The steps you have already taken to promote other healthy living habits within the commons provide a good foundation for you to build off of. As representatives of the Pennsylvania State University, you play a pivotal role in creating a positive image for the school while providing a necessary service to the student body. Researching and implementing more effective ways of waste reduction will benefit both your staff and the local community while shedding a positive light on the University. Penn State strives to uphold the same mission of teaching, research, and public service today that it advocated during its founding in 1855. The Commonwealth chartered the institution as one of the first colleges of agricultural science (Our History). Sustainability, one of the modern forefronts of environmental issues, nicely complements the ambitions of an agriculturally founded University, such as Penn State. Throughout the last decade several groups on campus collaborated to educate and encourage sustainable living habits from the student body. This mentality and drive to promote sustainability also reached residence life and food services. Today, dining commons serve anywhere between 79,000 to 94,000 meals to hungry students per week. This mass production of food generates over 600 tons of waste annually (Craig). While some of this waste finds its way into a recycling receptacle or compost pile, countless tons remain unaccounted for, filling up space in nearby landfills. This food costs the University a substantial amount of money, and serves very little purpose decomposing in the earth.

Everyday you work hard to prepare this same delicious food that hits the bottom of commons trashcans and begins its journey underground. In fact, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agencys 2010 Municipal Solid Waste Characterization Report, food makes up the largest percentage of waste entering municipal landfills. The rotting garbage also generates a significant source of methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (Reservation Conservation-Food Waste). None of these statistics benefit the well-being of the human population, and thus, the general public respects initiatives to reduce these banes on society and takes an active interest in these matters as everyday consumers. You represent an important part of Penn State and help to sell our University to potential students, investors, and the national community. Investing in research to conserve more of our food waste not only looks favorable for our University, but also allows your hard work to fulfill other needs instead of filling landfills. The food waste that the dining commons accumulates poses an additional and unnecessary nuisance to your staff. I dont think anyone will argue that hauling heavy garbage before, during, and after shifts expends an excessive amount of additional time and effort. Food services should reduce over-purchasing food to expedite the time allocated for this process. Not all of the waste generated in the dining halls comes off of student trays. The excess food that goes bad in the kitchen or on the buffet tables before consumption equally contributes to our garbage. The campus dining association should reduce this waste by only purchasing food that will be used. Reducing over-purchasing increases

staff efficiency by reducing the amount of energy and labor associated with food disposal. And I dont think anyone would mind a little less work and time on the job. In addition to the physical advantages of reducing the over-purchasing of food, the University and your staff will encounter a series of financial benefits as well. Reducing food consumption decreases the costs of resources for the University. With the many budget cuts and financial restrictions currently under discussion, reducing costs in this area will allow Penn State to allocate these preserved funds elsewhere. How might these financial changes directly affect your staff? While saving money may not directly impact your employees individual salaries, it will definitely permit your staff to maintain their current positions. Before redistributing money, many other institutions lay off workers to reduce costs. This not only places people in a more difficult financial situation, but it also presents greater responsibility, work, and stress for the remaining employees. If the University makes cuts in spending instead of in its food services labor force, everyone maintains their job security without heightened expectations on shift. And, since student employees make up the majority of your staff, these college kids will not need to worry about losing their work-study which they desperately need to pay off school loans. Your staff will continue to work hard and maintain the same friendly disposition that the student body is accustomed to, while representing a University that talks more about its achievements in the face of financial and economical stress instead of its setbacks. Many other universities across the nation promote waste reduction and prevention techniques during these economically difficult times. While dining hall protocol and

procedures dont rank first on university agendas, they certainly command enough attention due to the relevance and importance of sustainable living. Harvard University, for instance, instituted the Clean Plate Club in August of 2010, which promotes waste reduction through tray-less dining. This tactic limits the amount of food that students may take in a single trip, directly resulting in less waste (O Laughlin). Harvard certainly did not invent the idea of tray-less dining, they simply implemented the practice. Other universities, like Cornell, Skidmore, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, to name a few, eliminated dining hall trays within the last five years as well (Foderaro). You might wonder how this form of dining benefits you. In many ways, trays provide a convenient surface for individual waste. Will removing trays make the cleanup process more difficult and time-consuming? Absolutely not. Instituting tray-less dining actually reduces labor. Without the extra room, students take much less food, and actually finish their meals, reducing the amount of food that requires removal off of plates. Similarly, the removal of the trays means one less item to wash. Imagine if you never needed to wash a single tray again. For a campus service that provides over 80,000 meals a week, this results in the absence of 80,000 trays. You can spend less time cleaning, and more time focusing on customer satisfaction and courtesy. And since almost every student and guest that visits the University will eventually eat in one of your dining halls, customer service should command more attention than dirty dishes. Visitors, as well as the student body, respond to campus dining conditions and programs. I remember when I attended my first themed night at Pollock. My friends and I enjoyed a delicious assortment of Brazilian dishes in a beautifully decorated dining hall. Every now and then I bring up a new food I tried, or the colorful outfits of the employees

from that night, in conversation. My peers definitively considered the event successful because the meal made a positive impression on them. The impact that this single meal made reflects the campus dining associations active interest in the student body. Its not just about the food, but the experience. Food services works hard for the students, but should try to generate a similar response from the local community as well. Campus food services should donate leftover food to local food pantries or churches. The campus dining commons consistently meet the overwhelming demand for food, resulting in a large amount of untouched remains. This food, instead of finding its way into a dumpster, should fill the plates of those that need it. The local community consistently supports the University, and in return Penn State should do its part and give back to the people of State College. This service will reduce the food waste in the commons and benefit the local community. And after such a trying year, Penn State should try to advocate the positive aspects of the campus to the student body, general public, and nation as much as possible. In the course of two years, the Sandusky scandal tarnished Penn States reputation. Students, alumni, and faculty alike mourned over the unfortunate events that took place on school grounds many years before, and reassessed their faith in the University. This great educational institution served as the site of a disgusting crime, but never as a place that would promote such illegal activity. The University worked hard after last years events to rebuild the wonderful reputation that took years to construct. However, only time will heal the wounds that Penn State suffered, and in the meantime, the University must continue to strive for excellence. You as campus employees, and representatives of Penn State, play a pivotal role in this rebuilding process.

The implementation of waste reduction practices in the dining commons will benefit students, food service employees, and the University as a whole. Imagine walking into a friendly, welcoming dining hall that offers delicious food, provides fantastic service, and promotes sustainable living habits. Penn State maintains a beautiful campus and an assortment of resourceful, twenty-first century buildings; the dining commons are no exception. Every student and campus employee should consider himself or herself lucky to live and work in such a wonderful place. And the future only holds new brilliant ideas for enhancing the campus we all love. Despite the negative ramifications and publicity from the Sandusky scandal, we are still a strong, connected, and hard-working community. Implement further waste reduction practices, and we will be one step closer to rebuilding the name for this University and improving the morale of every campus food service employee. This is our community and nothing should deter us from moving forward and working towards a brighter, more sustainable tomorrow. We are green. We are dedicated. We are Penn State.

WORKS CITED Craig, Patricia. "Dining Services." Green: What We're Doing. The Pennsylvania State University, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2013. <http://www.green.psu.edu/psuDoing/ dining.asp>. Foderaro, Lisa W. "Without Cafeteria Trays, Colleges Cut Water Use, and Calories." The New York Times, 29 Apr. 2009. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/nyregion/29tray.html?_r=0>. O Laughlin, Molly. "Summer School Students Join the Clean Plate Club." Sustainability at Harvard. Harvard University, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2013. <http://green.harvard.edu/summer-school-students-join-clean-plate-club>. "Our History." Penn State. The Pennsylvania State University, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2013. <http://www.psu.edu/this-is-penn-state/our-history>. "Resource Conservation - Food Waste." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2013. <http://www.epa.gov/foodrecovery/>.