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Work with the Dining Hall
Our dining hall is pretty fantastic compared to those at most colleges, but it certainly isn't perfect. Sustainability issues stem from the amount of waste produced each day, and student life issues appear related to imperfect accommodation for dietary restrictions. We met with Dave Nadreau, the dining hall's General Manager, who told us the many things the dining hall is currently pursuing to alleviate those issues and discussed further steps to be taken in the future.
Composting Post-Consumer Waste
Currently, the dining hall composts all pre-consumer food waste, or scraps of organic ingredients generated during food preparation, which is used to help grow herbs and vegetables in our campus garden (located in Parcel B). There is considerable post-consumer waste though, which cannot be used in gardens due to oils, meats, and dairy mixed in. However, this waste can be composted in commercial facilities to keep it out of landfills, where it would release methane during anaerobic decay. Thus, the dining hall has implemented post-consumer waste collection. Instead of depositing dishes on a conveyor, students separate paper waste, trash, silverware, food, and dishes before leaving them in separate bins. Then, the separate streams of waste are treated more appropriately.
Adding Reusable Mugs and Take-out Containers
Significant waste from the dining hall is due to Aspretto cups. Unfortunately, these are a necessity, as the dining hall acts as a retail service for faculty and staff and has begun catering for campus events. However, Sodexo recently began selling reusable mugs through their "Choose to Reuse" program. Olin's staff had planned to implement the program but was denied by the health board, which would not allow the mugs to be collected and distributed at the register. Dave passed the project to us, asking us to design a different, student-driven program. Our plan was to supply the mugs beside the disposable ones for convenience; we would then provide collection bins for used dishes in each building. Volunteers would help return the bins to the dining hall each day, where the staff would wash and redistribute the containers. Unfortunately, our discussions with the health board have gone less than desirably. Getting the program going is proving to be much more difficult than we initially thought, so we are at a bit of an impasse at the moment. We plan to look into the idea further at a later date.
Reclaiming Aspretto Cups
Even if the aforementioned program is implemented successfully, people will still use Aspretto cups. The cups are entirely compostable and the lids are recyclable, but that doesn't guarantee that they will get composted or recycled. To facilitate proper disposal of these materials, the dining hall staff purchased Busch brand coffee cup recycle bins (pictured on the left). The bins have three separate inner chambers: one for the cup's contents, one for the cup itself, and one for the lid. The entire process of depositing one's cup should take less than five seconds, so we hope to reclaim the majority of the used cups. There are bins in the dining hall and will hopefully be some by each exit in the academic center in the future.
Improving the Accuracy of Dish and Ingredient Labels
Olin students' diets are extremely varied; a good percentage of us deviate from "the norm" by choice, faith, or necessity, and the dining hall makes a reasonable effort to accommodate everyone. But the dish labels, intended to show ingredients and identify allergens, are often inaccurate because, as with anything, mistakes are sometimes made; this means that people with real restrictions cannot trust the labels. Members of the staff do their best to review and correct labels; unfortunately, to permanently change an item's description, it must be reported to Sodexo and go through a lengthy review; thus, the mistakes Olin's staff correct often just reappear. If anyone has ideas to improve the accuracy of these labels consistently and efficiently, please contact us or the dining hall staff. In the meantime, if you notice inaccuracies, please report them, ideally to Dave or Bill, though any staff member should be able to address the issue.
Reorganizing the Menu to Accommodate Dietary Restrictions
Due to the small number of students and the large variety of diets, it is quite difficult for the dining hall to please everyone each day. The dining hall provides a variety of foods for a variety of diets; unfortunately, the menu is not always planned in such a way that meals are spread out and organized evenly. For example, some days every single dish is gluten-free; yet other days, nothing is gluten-free outside of the salad bar and pizzas we can request and wait for. Several interviewees, as well as ourselves, hoped to see the menu be more even. Bill promised to spend extra time preparing the menus in order to work toward the goal of ensuring that everyone's needs are completely met.