Take action to combat additional food waste on campus

The United States discards 40 million tons of food waste each year, more than any other country in the world.

Since we live in a country where food is relatively cheap and plentiful, our culture has begun to devalue the importance of food. Our dining halls are a perfect example of a culture of this nature, especially since food is so readily available here in campus dining halls.

One waste audit from the Sustainability Office measured 150 lbs, of food waste from just one lunch period at the Reef. Day in and day out, food is dumped from breakfast, lunch and dinner, whether it be from people’s plates or scraps that are left at the end of the night. The issue is that when students are living on campus, they typically do not have to think about food waste, especially if they primarily eat at the dining halls.

When you are finished with your meal, whether all your food is gone or not, you can simply toss it onto a conveyor belt where it disappears forever. We do not have to see the amount of food that is being thrown away each day. As of right now, there are some efforts on campus being taken to combat the large amount of food waste being produced.

For example, Community Kitchen is a student-run organization that takes the excess food from Gorecki and serves it to community members who are facing food insecurity. Also, the dining halls do their best to take measures to avoid food waste, such as calculating the appropriate number of meals to make, or their usage of the “pig bin” which collects food scraps to bring to local farms as pig slop.

However, the schools must pay the company, Barthold Hog Farm, to take these pig bins from our campuses. More sustainable alternatives would be to eliminate food waste in the first place or form a system in which leftover food is given to students on campus who are facing food insecurity. Food waste will continue to be a problem until we as students decide to do something about it. Small decisions such as taking smaller portions, coming back for seconds if needed, not using a tray and only taking what you can carry are great steps towards helping our institutions limit their food waste.

Additionally, if you create food waste in your dorm or apartment, consider getting a compost bin as opposed to simply throwing your food scraps in the trash can. The Sustainability Office located in Peter Engel Science Center on SJU has a box of compost bins outside their office that are free for the taking. Otherwise you can go ahead and knock, and someone in the office will find one for you.

If these are things you already do, then think about what other actions you can take to combat food waste on campus, like volunteering with Community Kitchen to help keep the program alive. While it is important to continue to conduct research and audits about food waste on campus, we should not simply wait around for statistics to be released to take action on an issue we already know exists. It is time we take matters into our own hands, and fight against food waste as a united student body.