Reusable To-Go Program Wrap-Up

With exams signifying the end of the academic year and the end of the time frame to cash in on one's meal plan benefits, reusable to-go program participants had the chance to return their key cards in exchange for being refunded their $7 security deposit. 321 UVa community members (mostly students with a handful of faculty) participated in the reusable to-go container program's inaugural year and about a third of them returned their key cards in order to get back the $7. Hereford Residential College provided the option of free participation, as their administration agreed to underwrite the cost of unreturned containers. The final verdict is still out on this experiment, but few students took advantage of the free sign-up and even fewer returned the materials last week. This brings up an interesting facet of human psychology: "free" may catch one's attention, but the presence of a fee may prompt users to have even a slightly more vested interest in the program. My personal opinion is that a refundable deposit provides the best of both worlds.

Since students had to return their key cards to the Dining Admin Office to receive their refunds, I had the chance to briefly interact with many of them, and the general consensus on the containers were: "They were great. It was an easy way for me to make a difference and reduce my environmental impact."

Some other specific email comments I received include:

"I would just like to say thank you for the re-usable program! I have found it incredibly easy and convenient to use! I hope it can continue in the coming years."

"I think the program has come a long way since the beginning of the school year and I definitely see more people using it. "

"The containers worked great."

"I loved the program, and I will definitely be doing it again next year!"

If you didn't try out reusable to-go containers this year, you'll be able to sign up next year. The program will be very similar, but keep your eyes open for some extra incentives to sweeten the deal a bit more...

Earth Week Re-cap, Awards, and more

What a month! I am finally back at my desk long enough to share some news and pictures that have accumulated over the past few weeks.

At the beginning of the month, I attended the 21st annual Environment Virginia symposium, a two-day conference open to sustainability professionals from the public and private sector from across the state. This was the first year that the conference included a "Viable and Sustainable Farms" track, among the more traditional concurrent sessions like "Land Conservation" and "Chesapeake Bay". The agriculture track was host to a varied array of sessions like wholesale distribution of local food, cultivating the next generation of Virginia's farmers, and tracking and accounting BMPs (Best Management Practices).

A number of additional UVa reps joined me in Lexington that evening for the 2010 Governor's Environmental Excellence Awards ceremony and banquet. UVa received a Silver Award for our Food Waste Composting Project; quite an honor to be recognized for that work.

Back on Grounds it was back to preparing for the sustainability world's biggest holiday: Earth Day (April 22nd, of course). This year, being the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Unity Project and other UVa student groups and departments banded together to create a truly impressive line-up of events and activities over the course of what became known as Earth Week. Check out the calendar from last week on the recently revamped UVa Sustainability website: Earth Week Calendar.

UVa Dining hosted a couple of events during this week-long celebration; namely the Earth Day bEARTHday Cookout last Monday as well as the Earth Day Prize Package Giveaway. The Cookout included some local food items (the menu consisted of local grass-fed burgers from Wolf Creek Farm, as well as potato salad made with potatoes from the Shenandoah Valley), live music by Trees on Fire, EMPSU prizes and raffles, and a display of the number of disposable to-go containers used at O-Hill in one week. The number is 4,700 (yes, in a single week!), by the way.

Dining's Prize Package was one of the culminating Earth Week events, on Earth Day itself: prize winners earned a spot for them and a friend to attend a private Dining-catered Farm to Fork dinner, chartered bus transport downtown, and tickets to the Ben Harper concert that evening at the Charlottesville Pavilion. The student winners had a great time and really liked the local dinner as well as the show. I was pleased to hear a few self-proclaimed foodies explain that though Ben Harper was a nice perk, they had entered in the raffle specifically for the chance to enjoy a local meal! With ingredients sourced from the Local Food Hub and Retail Relay, who could resist such a series of delightful spring fresh dishes?

Dining participated in several other events, like the Alternative Transportation Fair (I got to make my own bike-smoothie!), the StudCo Green Reception, Free Coffee Hour at the Fine Arts Cafe, and the Sustainability @ UVA Earth Day Extravaganza. Myself and other student volunteers manned the Green Dining info table, and in particular highlighted the unveiling of our two new frequent user punch cards: one for reusable to-go containers, and the other for reusable bags. These cards are both good through the end of the semester, so pick them up now so you can rack up punches to redeem the cards for the giveaways.

On a final note, yesterday I attended the Planning Department's Food Systems Planning Course panel on Local Food Heroes in our community. The line-up and the insight that all of the panelists shared with the audience made me realize (once again) that Charlottesville really is a hotbed of all-stars that are genuinely committed to ensuring economic vitality, farmland preservation, and access to healthy diets by way of creating a local food system. I left that panel sufficiently inspired to end the semester with a bang -- to that end, please join other students and administrators at our final Green Dining meeting of the year next Tuesday, May 4th, at 1pm in Hotel E. We'll analyze Earth Week and other events, as well as brainstorm projects to tackle next year. Hope to see you there!

Mark Winne lecture next Tuesday, April 6

Consider joining members of the University and Charlottesville communities at next week's Mark Winne lecture, sponsored by the Architecture School's spring 2010 Community Food System Planning course, the Student Planning Association, and UVa Dining!

Food Rebels and Smart Cookin' Mamas: Fighting Back in the Age of Industrial Agriculture

Even while local food systems are careening into mainstream American culture, today's economic climate is also prompting a brand new segment of the American population to utilize food stamps and other measures against increasing hunger. How do we confront the obstacles to realizing a sustainable food system with fairness and sensitivity? Food insecurity expert Mark Winne, author of Closing the Food Gap as well as former Executive Director of the Hartford Food System, will speak on these and other community food system topics including local and regional agriculture, community food assessment, and food policy. Reception to follow.

Where: Campbell Hall, Room 158

When: Tuesday, April 6, 5:30-6:30pm

UVa Compost Expansion

UVa Dining is making significant strides on the waste-to-landfill reduction front, with the addition of Newcomb Dining Hall in its compost program just two weeks ago. This expansion comes after sixteen months of smooth composting operation at O-Hill; throughout that time, over 50 tons of organic waste were diverted from the Amelia County landfill. As has been the case since the program's inception in the fall of 2008, all dining food waste is run through a pulper (to remove water and increase surface area of the food - and its ability to break down) and transported by UVa Recycling to Panorama Farm in the northern part of Albemarle County. UVa Dining is grateful for the cooperative efforts of UVa Recycling, Panorama Pay-Dirt, and UVa Environmental Health & Safety Office for helping Dining significantly reduce its environmental impact. Composting at O-Hill and Newcomb combined will be diverting approximately 4.5 tons of food waste from the landfill per week!

I had the pleasure of taking this success story to a recent NACUBO Smart & Sustainable Campuses Conference and presenting a poster on our program. The conference was the perfect opportunity to share our waste reduction efforts with a higher education audience - hopefully other schools will be able to implement similar programs without too many obstacles.

Do It Yourself Gardening... With Some Help

Now that the snow is finally melting and the sun is shining a little warmer every day, many of Charlottesville's green thumbed foodies are itching to get planting and to watch their spring garden take root. For those of us that may have the desire but need a bit of help getting started, no fear: this food-conscious town has given birth to not one but two organizations specifically designed to help us Charlottesville residents realize our small scale agrarian dreams.

According to their website, Blue Ridge Backyard Harvest "offers complete garden consultation, design, installation, four-season maintenance, education, and more." They can help install that garden you've always wanted, and even delve further into chicken keeping, mushroom cultivation, rain barrel installation, and the like.

Similarly, C'ville Foodscapes "designs, installs, and maintains food-producing gardens in Charlottesville, Virginia." Join them for their official launch party at Random Row Bookstore this Sunday, March 7th from 2-5pm. The gathering will feature a seed swap, raffle, garden crafts, live music, and of course food.

Bravo to Blue Ridge Backyard Harvest and C'ville Foodscapes -- I look forward to seeing the fruits of their labors!

Aramark: Sustainability in the Food Service Environment

Aramark recently released a white paper on sustainability, entitled Sustainability in the Food Service Environment. Its publication is a result of a partnership with the IFMA Sustainability Committee; one initiative resulting from that committee is the creation of a series of "How-To Guides" related to sustainability issues within the facilities management realm. This particular guide takes a wide lens view on tackling environmental conservation at a food service locale, covering topics from responsible procurement - food and packaging - to energy and waste stream management. Feel free to give it a look over (click on the picture of the report to access the entire pdf) and to leave a comment with the recommendation you'd like to see UVa Dining implement!

Campus Kitchens and Greening Greeks:

Two noteworthy developments to share:

For starters, after literally years of back and forth, and planning, and safety obstacles, and student interest, the UVa chapter of the Campus Kitchens Project is officially up and running with its first delivery of food to the Charlottesville Salvation Army this past Sunday. The executive team will coordinate its large network of student volunteers to receive food deliveries, prep food in Runk, and deliver it to the Salvation Army in time for lunch every Sunday. Everyone involved in the lengthy approval process deserves major kudos for sticking it out and seeing this project finally get off the ground. Despite the difficulties implementing the program, the benefits - diverting more food waste from the landfill, connecting students with the underserved members of the Charlottesville community outside of the University bubble, establishing a philanthropic relationship between UVa Dining (and eventually other food service organizations) and deserving non-profits - obviously far outweigh the potential bureacratic drawbacks. I for one am excited to see Campus Kitchens become a well established link between UVa and Charlottesville!

In other, also waste diversion, news, the student group Greening Greeks has worked with me to set up a reusable to-go box pilot program at the Kappa Delta sorority house. Fraternities and sororities use catering companies to provide their houses with dinners on weeknights, and the caterers' general protocol for those that can't make it to the meal is to package food up for them in styrofoam containers. Even if there's just an average of a dozen absent sorority or fraternity members per meal, that's multiplied by the large number of sororities and fraternities at UVa -- and that starts adding up quickly. In an effort to combat that rampant waste, I introduced fifteen reusable to-go containers to KD on Monday. For the rest of this semester, KD's catering company will use those boxes to pack up leftovers, and rather than discarding them after a single use, the girls will simply stick the boxes in the house dishwasher and catering will use them again the next day. Hopefully this will be the start of a more significant trend within UVa's Greek community to reduce its environmental impact.