Dining Services is making the sustainable switch to environmentally friendly dishware next semester and will likely expand its composting program, but officials are still unsure of how to guarantee the new carry-out containers, plates and cups will be properly disposed.
Starting Jan. 1, all plastic foam on the campus will be replaced by Bagasse, a product made of sugar cane which can be composted into a nutrient-rich soil additive and reused to fertilize campus gardens.
But Dining Services has no control over how students discard the compostable material once they leave the dining halls, and the university cannot send the containers to be composted if they end up being thrown away anywhere on the campus outside the dining halls, said Dining Services spokesman Bart Hipple.
The Bagasse material, which will be purchased from Boulder, Colo.-based company Eco Products, will be between two and a half and five times more expensive than the plastic foam the dining halls currently use, Hipple said. Dave Raymond, the procurement officer in Dining Services, would not reveal the exact cost of the compostable containers and plates because "pricing is pretty much confidential."
Dining Services will make up for the extra cost by encouraging a decrease in carry-out dining. Hipple estimated that last year, customers used approximately 1.1 million take-out containers. He said decreasing the number of carry-out containers students use could help minimize next year's room and board.
The university also has plans for a pilot program to compost its own waste. The school's food waste is picked up daily at the two dining halls and at the Stamp Student Union by a company called Envirelation, which takes it to a landfill on the Eastern Shore for composting, said Assistant Director of Dining Services Maintenance Greg Thompson.
To make these pickups include as much of the Bagasse as possible, officials hope students will bring the containers back to the dining halls and discard them on the tray-return line.
Scott Lupin, the director of the Office of Sustainability, said the university will test out its own composting beginning in early February when they take a load of food and Bagasse waste to a university farm in Clarksville. After the 90-day process is complete, the compost will be brought back to the campus for use on the grounds and gardens, Lupin said.
Eliminating plastic foam and composting its own waste will win the university some green points, but other universities across the country have already introduced other sustainable dining initiatives.
About half of all colleges and universities compost some food and landscape waste, and biodegradable carry-out containers are offered at 32 percent of schools, according to the 2009 College Sustainability Report Card, which is published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.
"Many, many universities who really champion sustainability do not allow carry-out," Hipple said. He added those universities generally have all-you-can-eat dining plans, making it possible to eliminate carry-out containers altogether.
During the month of January, employees will be retrained to use china as much as possible.
The carry-out containers will continue to be the only option for students during late-night because Dining Services does not have enough labor to supply a dish crew.
"Budgets are very, very tight," Hipple said. "Food costs have gone up, and we are not raising our prices."
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