Green Dining

UD Dining Services has a reputation of excellence and quality. Implementing green dining initiatives in our cafes and dining halls is a natural extension of our commitment to serving our students and campus community.

Sustainability may feel like a new buzz word, but in Dining Services its common sense. We have been sourcing some fresh, local, and organic ingredients from our suppliers for years, and work to offer vegetarian and vegan options at every meal. In our latest effort, Dining Services will take on the problem of waste.

Waste not, Want not

In the first step of what will be a transformative process, Dining Services has unveiled a new composting program in the fall of 2009. All disposable products which had been manufactured from polystyrene and plastic have been replaced with paper- and starch-based alternatives. This will allow us to collect them separately from the trash and compost them with food scraps and paper products.

We estimate that once all food, paper, and disposable product waste is separated, Dining Services will have eliminated more than 80% (and perhaps 90%) of its “trash.”

Closing the Loop

The program won’t just eliminate waste: we’ve closed the loop in several other ways. The facility that will process our compost is a local company, which means we’re helping to keep and expand job opportunities in the Miami Valley. (It also means we’ve minimized the transportation energy required to compost our waste.) In addition, the material that we send to the compost facility will become mulch, potting mix, and other valuable products that are bagged and sold locally, returning essential nutrients to the soil.

What will Composting do?

Well, it will take a huge bite out of the waste that comes out of the dining halls each week. This means that fewer trucks will have to come to campus to collect that waste, leading to fewer emissions from those trucks. Also, organic waste doesn’t truly “compost” in a landfill, but instead contributes to emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that is 24 times more potent than carbon dioxide. We’re saving landfill space, avoiding emissions of both methane and CO2, and creating a valuable product that will be sold locally- sustainable in just about every way!

An Ongoing Effort

For now, all compost will be collected from the trayveyor systems in the dining halls, and from preparation waste. Getting the program up and running without contaminating the loads of compost is important. In the future, the opportunities to compost will be expanded, first by placing compost receptacles in the dining rooms, and then perhaps elsewhere on campus.

See the Dining Services website for more on how the composting program will work, and how it will change the way our campus eats and disposes of waste.