By Lauren Zazzara
Associate Editor
Students may want to think twice before they throw out that half-eaten piece of pizza at lunch time. The Hickey Dining Hall staff is going to weigh it.
The “Weigh the Waste campaign,” which went from Feb. 10 through Feb. 16 and began again this week on Tuesday, measures the amount of “plate waste” the campus community produces, according to Amy Vleminckx, the general manager of ARAMARK Corporation.
“Plate waste is considered anything that is left on the dishes when they were returned to the dish room,” said Vleminckx. “We had our staff weigh the first five bags of plate waste they accumulated. We took the average weight and multiplied it by the number of bags of trash from the tray line we had all day. This plate waste includes all waste scrapped from plates from the time we open until we close.”
Steve Young, the production manager of The Hickey, said they used scales that have a high weight capacity to measure the food that came back on the conveyor belt.
“At our last meeting with all the managers, just from the trash where the dirty dishes are put, it wound up being about 2 pounds per person after we went back and looked at how many people had gone through the line and how much waste there was,” Young said.
Of the days measured, the campus community produced the most waste on Wednesday, Feb. 10 with 844.8 pounds and the least waste on Friday, Feb. 12 with 352 pounds.
The Weigh the Waste campaign is part of Recyclemania, a competition among colleges and universities to reduce waste, which began in February.
“Sr. Margaret is very concerned with waste in general, and she spoke with someone within our organization at an event she attended recently,” said Vleminckx. “When we heard of Sister’s concern, we found information on a ‘Weigh the Waste campaign.’”
Young said he hopes the initiative will help the campus community think more about waste.
“Aramark is very big on preventing waste because we don’t like to throw food away in the kitchen, but if you think about it, it’s on a bigger scale,” he said. “If you think about all the water that was used to grow the plants, raise the animals, cook it—if you think about all of that, it’s a lot of water that gets wasted too.”
Vleminck also said she hopes The Hickey’s initiative encourages students to reduce waste.
“The purpose of the ‘Weigh the Waste’ event is to educate and create awareness amongst students on the amount of food wasted and how quickly it adds up,” she said. “We want to do our part to help minimize waste considering the impact it has on the environment.”
zazzarlm13@bonaventure.edu
