An effort to discourage students from taking meals “to go” is one of several initiatives Dining Services has instituted to help make Boston University a more sustainable campus, a Dining Services official said on Thursday.
Sustainability Coordinator Sabrina Pashtan outlined the strides she said Dining Services has made in its sustainability program since it formed in 2007 in a lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.
Pashtan, who joined BU Dining Services in January 2010, spoke before an audience of about 20 students about the environmental impact Dining Services has made at BU. The lecture and following Q&A were organized by the Environmental Students Organization.
“A lot of people get hung up on what isn’t being done, and so I kind of wanted to show what has already been done, and Dining Services surprisingly has actually been the place where there’s been the most dramatic and visible change across campus,” said ESO member Alex Lundsted, a College of Arts and Sciences senior studying environmental analysis and policy.
Dining Services’ waste diversion rate has more than doubled from 31 percent in 2008 to 75 percent in 2011, when the George Sherman Union began a new recycling and composting program, according to a presentation displayed at the meeting.
“We’ve kind of peaked in accomplishing how much waste we can divert,” Pashtan said. “So now we’re really moving toward reduction, and that’s really the case across campus.”
Pashtan said that in past years, the installation of the water filling station, the implementation of discounts for using reusable mugs and the substitution of bulk condiments for smaller packets were all changes that Dining Services made to reduce waste.
This year’s changes to enhance waste reduction at the GSU might be a little less noticeable to students because they take place behind the scenes, Pashtan said.
Pashtan conducted research on paper-cup consumption last semester and found that employees were using 275,000 cups per year.
“They go through like four or five cups a day, and in the GSU alone, we have 150 employees,” she said. “So we started a reusable mug program, and all of our employees got a mug, and they have to use it for all of their beverages. It’s been a really successful program.”
Dining Services also had a shift in policy to prevent employees from serving so many “to go” meals in disposable containers, Pashtan said.
“Something that we found over the past year was that for some reason students still say ‘to go’ and then they go sit down with their disposable containers,” she said. “So this year what we’re trying to do, and it’s kind of working, is not ask anymore ‘for here or to go’ and to automatically use our own plates.”
Students who attended said they were generally surprised to learn just how much Dining Services has actually done to make BU a more sustainable campus.
“I’m in the ESO group, and I really wanted to just come out and hear more about sustainability,” said Ryan Cruz, a junior in the College of Engineering.
School of Management junior Jaime Silverstein, director of environmental affairs for Student Union, said she was surprised by Dining Services’ efforts.
“I found it interesting how much they’ve actually already done that I wasn’t aware of, and I think that should be a big push for them now to make more students aware,” Silverstein said.
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