Tiffany Kwapnoski

English 145

3/17/08

Research Paper

Sustainable Dining

Everyday, Cal Poly Campus Dining provides food for approximately 3,100 residents, not to mention the thousands of other students, faculty, and staff that eat on campus between classes or on breaks from work or study. With all those people and all that potential waste, it only makes sense that such a large corporation would practice sustainability—defined in conventional terms as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (11). According to Cal Poly, sustainability is “…balancing environmental responsiveness, resource efficiency and cultural and community sensitivity” (6). Overall, Campus Dining has succeeded in becoming “sustainable” by this definition.

Because of all the recycle bins and biodegradable containers on campus, I have always been under the impression that Cal Poly was a leader among sustainable campuses, especially in the food service area. Campus Dining has been the winner of the Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) award thirteen years running. WRAP is a program that awards California businesses that have succeeded in reducing their amount of nonhazardous waste and garbage that goes to the landfills (3). However, I was puzzled to find that we are not even on the list of “Sustainable Dining Initiatives on Campus” according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) (12). I feel that our sustainability program is thriving, but we are not obtaining the recognition we deserve.

At UC Berkeley, all residential dining locations are green certified buildings. They have 100% organic salad bars in all dining halls, and in the residence halls, they have compost bins for to-go containers and food waste (4). These practices may go slightly beyond what Cal Poly has done, but our achievements are still great. The main difference is: at Berkeley the students are informed and involved. “[Seeing their school’s success] can make them proud of their school’s dedication to sustainability; it can encourage them to experience the good taste and nutrition of organic food; and it may well inspire them to seek the same high standards outside of school” (9). This is all on a webpage that clearly explains the sustainability of Cal’s dining, but at Cal Poly, such a page does not exist. We decorate our tables with small flyers in picture frames, but it is not a guarantee that students even read them. The bulk of our achievements are hard to learn about without going directly to Alan Cushman, the head of Campus Dining.

Although Cal Berkeley may surpass us in being a sustainable campus, we have certainly come a long way. Campus Dining has not always been able to call itself “sustainable,” but through the use of the “Three R’s” that I learned in elementary school, our campus has made substantial progress.

The first “R” stands for “Reduce;” and reduction of waste and resource use has been Campus Dining’s greatest achievement yet. In a discussion with Alan Cushman, the director of Campus Dining, he explained to me the collaborative efforts of many different Cal Poly organizations towards improving Campus Dining—the Cal Poly Organic Farm and the Biodiesel Club to name a couple.

The Organic Farm provides much of the produce used in different restaurants on campus. Seventy-five percent of produce purchased by Campus Dining is from California, with fifty percent being local. “By purchasing from local growers, we reduce fuel costs and pollution” (7). Also, because most food is prepared from “scratch” and the Organic Farm is conveniently located on campus, the food is healthier and less packaging is used, causing less waste.

The Biodiesel Club also contributes to Campus Dining’s overall reduction of harmful products by providing three delivery trucks with an alternative fuel: biodiesel. Biodiesel is a cleaner alternative fuel that is made from domestic sources, such as our fryer fat. It is biodegradable, nontoxic, and all around better for the environment because it has no sulfur and aromatics (1). Actually, the trucks are using B20 fuel, which is only 20 percent biodiesel, and purchased off campus (13). However, the club is hopeful that soon we will be able to convert fryer fat to biodiesel on campus. “We left the white space under the ‘provided by’ and in front of the ‘biodiesel’ on the trucks so that when we make our biodiesel on campus, we can put the Cal Poly logo there” (5).

Campus Dining also reduces the use of resources without the help of outside organizations. In addition to the biodiesel trucks, Campus Dining also uses electric vehicles to make deliveries. The electric vehicles pose a problem though: they do not have enough power to charge up the many hills of Cal Poly. First year residence halls have their pizza delivered in a sustainable manner, but with students living in Cerro Vista and soon in Poly Canyon, gas vehicles must still be used. Cushman told me he was looking into purchasing air-powered vehicles from India, but the idea is still young. “We don’t want to use gas if we can avoid it” (5). By Campus Dining purchasing local and using its own vehicles, it limits the emissions from incoming deliveries. Reduction is also common practice inside each Campus Dining restaurant. Campus Dining reduces energy consumption by using “energy efficient lighting and refrigeration units” and by having “energy conscious thermostats” (2).

“Reuse” and “Recycle” are two common themes inside every Campus Dining restaurant. “Garden Grille, Veranda Café, VG Café and Vista Grande Restaurant utilize reusable plates and flatware” (7). Students at Cal Berkeley can purchase reusable mugs and bags to carry their food, a practice I thought we only partially followed. I know Campus Dining also sells refillable mugs, and students who use one are rewarded with a discount on soda. However, very recently, I noticed that Campus Market has started selling reusable biodegradable bags to replace the plastic on campus. This is a big step for us! And, along with reusing, recycling is a big deal on campus—blue bins are everywhere. Campus Dining recycles about 6,000 pounds of cardboard each week, along with aluminum, plastic, glass, and paper. Before all the polystyrene recycling centers closed, that was recycled too.

As of May 2004, “Campus Dining areas (Light House, Julian’s, Campus Market, The Avenue, Lucy’s etc.) use[d] a combined average of 12,000 polystyrene beverage containers each week” (8). Now, instead of polystyrene, biodegradable “to-go” containers are used. Cushman told me this phase-out happened in three steps. By January 26, 2007, the VG complex had discontinued the use of polystyrene. Campus Dining Administration then set a goal for the UU to phase it out by March 1. Before polystyrene use could be ended forever, Lucy’s Juice and Lucy’s Juice Too had to test clear cups to make sure they were not too cold to hold smoothies. Fortunately the test was a success and the switch was made by August 31, 2007. Cushman also stated that the process took so long to complete because, “in order to get the Julian’s logo on Styrofoam cups, we had to order a three year supply. But finally, I just told them to do away with all the polystyrene” (5). Approximately $5,000 in Styrofoam cups was donated to local food banks in early September.

Our current biodegradable containers can be composted in two places on the sustainability farm. Composting is “the biological decomposition of organic materials such as leaves, grass clippings, brush, and food waste into a soil amendment” (10). The sustainable farm does both pre- and post-consumer composting, meaning that produce trimmings, coffee grounds, egg shells, as well as partially eaten food can be composted, usually in about 14 days. In the course of a year, Campus Dining kitchens compost an average of 1,500 pounds of food scraps a day (13). Currently there are two “behind-the-scenes” sorting sites and one student involved site. At Garden Grille and Veranda Café, students put their entire tray on a conveyor belt where employees then sort the materials into different categories: compost, recycle, wash, garbage. These two sorting sites are efficient, but VG café is a different story. Some students sort their materials correctly, some put the wrong items in the wrong bins, and others put their entire tray in the trash, dishes and all. Even for the students who can sort correctly, there is still an issue: when you take a to-go container back to the residence hall, where do they go after use? Do you recycle them? Or just throw them away? This is not an issue at Berkeley because they have bins for them. But since biodegradable containers cannot be recycled, and no compost bins exist in the halls, students must throw their containers away. In doing so, it is less likely they will biodegrade.

In an effort to offset the waste on campus, most of Cal Poly’s functions are Zero Waste events, run by members of the Zero Waste Club. This club constantly looks for and studies new ways to “effectively collect and compost organic waste on campus” (13). At these Zero Waste events, clear biodegradable containers are used and nothing, not even food scraps, goes to landfills. So why not have all of Campus Dining be “zero waste”? Well, participants in these events are specifically trained in sorting post-consumer materials. They know that the clear containers appear to be recyclable but are actually biodegradable. If they are placed in recycling bins, everything in the bin is then contaminated and can no longer be recycled. Through the sorting stations in the restaurants, we are attempting to be zero waste, but it could take about 4 years to completely convert the campus. In addition, training over 18,000 students to know the difference between recyclable and biodegradable clear containers is practically impossible.

Compared to our accomplishments, what we still have left to do is minor. Solutions could be as simple as putting a compost bin with every recycle bin or putting up pictures of the correct materials for each bin at a sorting site. However, the problem is not that we have not been sustainable, rather that we have not been recognized for our efforts. Adding a webpage of what we have accomplished to the Campus Dining website would increase student awareness and involvement. The majority of changes at Cal Poly are a result of dedicated students who take the initiative to start something new. All it takes is educating those who do not know any better, and involving those who would otherwise never do anything about it. Cal Poly, in particular Campus Dining, has come a long way in being sustainable, and plans for the future are underway. Soon we too will be on the list of “Sustainable Dining Initiatives on Campus.”

Bibliography

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2. Campus Dining, a Winner in Waste Reduction. San Luis Obispo: Cal Poly Campus Dining, 2007.

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13. Worth, Chad. "What Cal Poly really needs…" Mustangdaily.net. 8 Feb. 2008. Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. 26 Feb. 2008 <http://media.www.mustangdaily.net/media/storage/paper860/news/2008/02/08/Columns/What-Cal.Poly.Really.Needs-3197119.shtml>.