Universities are leading the attack on food waste
You there! Drop that cafeteria tray!
Sometimes the simplest solutions to reducing food waste can be the best鈥揳nd the cheapest too. Of course, from cutting coupons to lugging their weight in dirty laundry home for break, college students know how to save money. So it鈥檚 no surprise that they know how to save food too (and we鈥檙e not talking about stocking up on ramen).
Noticing how much food is wasted on college campuses every year (聽to be exact), students all over the country have started programs to reduce food waste through food recovery and composting efforts. Amongst the most effective programs are聽补苍诲听, which have recovered a combined total of almost 5.5 million pounds of food from college campuses since 2001.
But college campuses don鈥檛 need to join one of these programs or even create a campus club to reduce food waste and save money.
The easiest solution colleges have found to reduce food waste and save money is to go. When students have a tray to fill with food, they鈥檒l do just that. And more often than not, students realize their eyes are bigger than their stomach and end up tossing out the remaining food.聽
础苍听聽in 2008 found when college dining halls go trayless for a day, food waste is decreased 25 to 30 percent per person. The study also found that going trayless lowers not only food waste removal costs, but also the cost of water, energy, and cleaning supplies used when cleaning the trays.
Another food waste study in 2013鈥攖his time by a group of Lean Six Sigma students at the聽鈥攕hares a few other tips to reduce food waste on college campuses. The students found that simply educating students and staff about food waste, providing smaller serving utensils, pre-dishing more foods, and limiting the number of dishes the students uses can reduce each student鈥檚 food waste by 2.66 ounces per meal鈥攖otaling 145.4 pounds less food waste per lunch period.
This equals to an estimated 7,270 pounds saved per 10-week quarter. Considering food waste costs the Rose-Hulman dining hall around US$1.60 per pound in removal costs, Lean Six Sigma calculated that these easy (and cheap) changes could save the school about US$11,787 per quarter鈥擴S$35,361 per academic year. That鈥檚 more than the聽聽of out-of-state university tuition last year.
That鈥檚 a pretty great dividend for just encouraging people to take what they like, and eat what they want, instead of wasting. It would be great to see more institutions鈥攍arge and small, corporate and nonprofit鈥攖ake a lesson from these smart colleges and ban the tray.
Some states are already adopting these basic best practices and applying them to institutions of all sizes. Massachusetts, for example,聽and is reaping major benefits both economically and environmentally. One of their聽聽looking to reduce their own food waste: go trayless!
This article first appeared at
