A new Dining Services initiative will allow students to buy a takeout container they can bring back in.
The North and South Campus dining halls will debut a test set of 1,000 reusable plastic containers during the next few weeks. Officials said they are eager to see whether students reduce their use of current disposable boxes in favor of these environmentally friendly counterparts.
Planning for the program began more than a year ago, Dining Services spokesman Bart Hipple said. After gauging student interest and learning from schools with similar programs, such as Emerson College and the University of Vermont, he said this university decided to give it a shot. If successful, this university will be the first of its size to offer reusable carryout containers.
“We do pilot programs that we’re confident in, and we’re doing a pilot just to make sure,” he said.
The two dining halls go through more than one million containers each year, and Dining Services officials said they hope the eco-friendly alternative — which cost $4,750 out of the department’s capital fund to purchase the initial 1,000 containers, Hipple said — will greatly decrease dining hall waste.
“Takeout containers make up a lot of waste in the dining halls and around the rest of campus,” said Allison Lilly, Dining Services sustainability coordinator. “This is a great opportunity for everyone to work together to change that.”
This week, the department has been advertising the option by sending informational postcards to each student with a dining plan. Students can redeem these postcards for a free container; those without dining plans can purchase containers for a one-time fee of $5. The non-reusable carryout containers used by dining halls cost $0.25 each.
The new plastic containers are similar to Tupperware products and durable enough to last more than a year, Hipple said.
With the new system, students can return these containers to the two main dining halls and place them in a $6,000 collection machine in exchange for a token. Students can then redeem these tokens at any food line for a clean containers.
“I think each student is going to figure out their own way to deal with this,” Hipple said. “I think some students just won’t want to be bothered with it at all; I think some students will use it every time they get carryout; I think most students will be somewhere in between.”
Some students said they were looking forward to trying the new containers because they are both inexpensive and better for the environment.
“I’d definitely use them; it’s more eco-friendly,” sophomore letters and sciences major Peter Raia said. “That would make it a lot easier because the university wouldn’t have to keep buying disposable containers each year.”
Sophomore hearing and speech sciences major Laura Friedman predicted the program would be successful if Dining Services makes it known to students.
“I think if it’s advertised well, people will use it,” Friedman said. “It’d be really awesome if it works.”
However, other students said they feel the project might not catch on.
“I think it’s a good idea, but people are just too lazy,” sophomore psychology major Nick Smith said. “Everyone likes to say they care about the environment, but nobody likes to do anything about it.”
Dining Services officials said they designed the process as simply as possible to encourage student use.
“I think from a student’s perspective it should be real easy to use,” Lilly said. “We really hope people will want to use them.”
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