Week 7: Waste and Weighs!

This week, the compost teams came together with volunteers from GreeND and some philosophy students to weigh the waste produced in both north and south dining halls.

The plan was simple: waste collected off of trays from students would be sorted into either meat & dairy or otherwise, and would be weighed at the end of the evening. South dining hall members had to accommodate for bones since it was wing night and everyone had to make a tough call when it came to mixed dishes like pizza.

It was challenging to keep up with the volume of waste students were putting in, since many enjoy meals in groups and within the same 1-hour window. Even with the mad rush, the volunteers came away with some interesting observations.

For one, STUDENTS CAN BE INCREDIBLY WASTEFUL. There were many instances of entire dishes left untouched, such as slices of cake, lasagna, or pasta. Our dining hall system is framed around the concept of "All you care to eat" so there will always be some instances where people's eyes are bigger than their stomachs. That said, we can do better.

Second, students can be awfully sensitive about the waste they produce! A lot of plates that were turned in had napkins covering the grisly food scraps beneath, as if they were trying to hide the mess. Some students asked us questions about what we were doing scraping plates and we were encouraged by their curiosity for composting.

At the end of the evening, it was disheartening to realize that around 300 pounds of waste were produced in each dining hall in just 2 hours. To be fair to the students, some of this waste was not necessarily edible (such as banana peels, or bones) but all of it would contribute to the required capacity of our compost design. By dividing that total by the number of people who swiped in that meal, we found the total waste per-person per-meal was about five ounces, which, when multiplied by the number of meals served in a day gives us an estimate of about 1.5 tons of waste produced per day. As tough as it was to recognize this number, it will be essential in how we design our facilities in the future!