At least 12 students will begin participating Tuesday in a two-week trial of a waste-free dining program created by the Dartmouth Sustainability Initiative and Dartmouth Dining Services. The trial program, called the Sustainable Dining Club, allows students to eat at Collis Cafe without creating any waste and will serve as a guide for how best to implement the waste-free dining program planned to start at Home Plate next quarter.
In a campus-wide BlitzMail message, Sustainability intern Jennifer Lopez '08 asked students "to be a part of Dartmouth History" by participating in the trial program. Lopez and fellow intern Emily Jones '08 will wander through Collis Tuesday to recruit more people to join the SDC trial program.
SDC members will each have a card to show to a Collis Cafe server, who will then provide them with a clean, reusable take-out container with a lid. SDC members have already been given a sustainable dining kit, which includes a Nalgene bottle, an eco-mug with a carabineer, a cloth napkin and silverware. Students can get their food "to go" and return their containers to drop-off boxes in Collis or at the Food Court tray return area.
Members of the SDC will pledge to eat at Collis over the next two weeks and use their dining kits whenever they have meals.
The SDC's success relies almost entirely on members upholding their pledges to participate. The level of success of the program will provide DDS and DSI an estimate of the level of participation to expect in the fall. Additionally, the DSI interns hope to receive constructive criticism about the project so that they can improve it.
"We want to make this program as successful as possible," Lopez said.
While only 12 students have signed up so far, Jones and Lopez believe that there will be enough interest in the fall to generate 400 to 500 participants.
"This program puts a lot of responsibility on behalf of the students," DDS Director Tucker Rossiter said. "We don't have an unlimited number of kits, so if you have six in your room, that really creates a problem for the other SDC members participating in the dining program."
Even if the Collis trial program is unsuccessful, Rossiter believes there will still be a waste-free dining program in the fall.
"Regardless of what happens, we're going to give it a fair shot with the full student body on campus," Rossiter said.
College Sustainability Coordinator James Merkel reported that each waste-free dining kit costs about $20. Since students use an average of $1.17 worth of disposable food-related items each day, a kit will pay for itself within about 20 days, Merkel said. After 20 days of use, the kits will continue to save the College money in addition to reducing the amount of waste.
"It's cost-effective and it's environmentally friendly," Jones said.
Acccording to Merkel, each person in the Dartmouth community created an average of 796 pounds of waste in 2005. Since his appointment as sustainability coordinator in June 2005, Merkel has worked with Home Plate to reduce the amount of waste the dining hall creates. Home Plate currently only generates two pounds of garbage per 300 meals served, and Merkel said that he believes that the sustainability kit program will cause that number to decrease.
An information session about the trial program was held Monday night in Tindle Lounge. Lopez explained the need for students to reduce their waste and trash impact on the environment to the dozen students who attended and expressed interest in participating. Lopez and Jones expect at least five to six additional students to attend Tuesday's make-up meeting at 8:30 a.m. in the basement of Robinson Hall.
