News & Events
UConn Dining has Chosen to Move Towards a Trayless Dining Program
Have you ever thought about the impact on our environment of washing in excess of four million trays a year? Well, we did. In the spring of 2008, the Office of Environmental Policy, in combination with two student groups, Eco Husky & ConnPIRG, collaborated with the Department of Dining Services to spearhead a “trayless” initiative which would evaluate the results of a pilot program that was hosted by Whitney Dining and Northwest Dining. At Whitney, dinner meals were monitored over a three-week period. Week one, they measured waste and water usage with trays, the second week with “trayless” education, and the final week, without using trays. At Northwest, they measured the amount of waste reduction without trays. The savings during this short period at dinner alone was substantial. The findings that were realized were a waste reduction of 760 pounds of food and 913 gallons of water.
Additional research was followed up with a question that appeared in Dining Services’ semi-annual student survey. The question was asked, “Are you willing to help control waste in our dining units to support the sustainability movement?” Ninety five percent of the students responding to the spring survey question said, “Yes, we would be in favor of participating in initiatives that would have an impact on saving our resources.”
As a result of our pilot program and survey responses, Dining Services wanted to take the next step by making sure a trayless dining program would not be a hardship on our customers. We continued our efforts this summer in those facilities that hosted several summer programs and the First Year Orientation program. What we realized after serving 49,000 meals without incident was that a trayless environment was a very doable large-scale sustainable effort. Students were still able to select what they wanted and as much as they wanted without being significantly impositioned.
So what does this mean to you as a consumer? As a business it is part of Dining Services’ social responsibility to move to reduce our environmental footprint and to demonstrate our commitment to being a deeply responsible dining program. In order to discourage food waste and decrease energy use this fall, Dining Services will discontinue the use of trays in seven of our eight residential facilities. South Campus will continue to use trays but we are currently procuring trays that are smaller in size. Why are we moving away from the institutionalized use of trays in a cafeteria setting? As mentioned above, it was found in our two initial programs that a considerable decrease was realized in the use of water and food waste. In addition, in the spring of 2008 the university hired an external consulting firm that evaluated the use of water on campus. Dining Services was identified as one of the major consumers of water. Their recommendation and subsequent expectation from the university was to make significant changes in the way we utilize water in our facilities. As referenced above, we serve in excess of four million meals per year. A trayless dining program will not only decrease our waste but also our use of water, soap, and electricity.
The trayless dining center is part of a movement that in recent years has seen colleges adopt greener practices. “Most of the nation's 4,000 colleges and universities will cut trays from their dining services within the next five years," projects Julian Dautremont-Smith, Associate Director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Here is a sampling of other schools that have transitioned to a trayless dining environment:
- University of San Diego
- University of Kansas
- San Diego State University
- Utah State University
- University of Alaska Fairbanks
- St. Norbet College
- Western Oregon University
- University of Kentucky
- University of Arkansas
- Middlebury College
- St. Lawrence University
- Unity College
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- University of Minnesota
- The Lovett School
- Rochester Institute of Technology
- Louisiana State University
- Radford University
- Alfred University
- St. Paul’s School
- Northfield Mount Herman
- Wartburg College
- New York University
- University of North Carolina
- University of Florida
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Sustainability is about the significance of humble acts. It begins with recycling aluminum cans, recycling our campus newspaper, and leads up to bigger initiatives such as specifying more efficient equipment. The trayless transition is Dining Services’ contribution to the Division of Student Affairs’ commitment to sustainability and to the university’s commitment to the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (PCC), a document that commits the Storrs campus to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
As we move forward there are several other sustainable initiatives under way. Did you know that some Dining Services’ used fryolator oil is converted into biodiesel to power the university buses? Simultaneously, we are working towards several sustainable dining programs like our Local Routes program at Whitney, the management of ten bee hives that will enable us to provide our own honey on campus, continuing our reusable drink container promotion, “Hydrate for Life,” and using more eco-friendly dish detergent in the cleaning of our dishware.
Please support our efforts. Our trayless initiative is just one step to the greening of UConn.
University of Connecticut
Department of Dining Services
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