Read dining dumps trays

The leftovers on trays rounded the conveyor belt as usual in Read Center’s Landes Dining Room. last week, but they didn’t just go down the drain. Every ounce of food and drink waste was placed in buckets, weighed and recorded. 

Victoria Getty and her volunteers were elbow deep in students’ leftover food.
Getty, a senior instructor in the IU Department of Applied Health Sciences, is the co-investigator of a research project examining the change in
structure soon taking place at  Read Center’s dining hall — Read is going trayless.

While the dining style will still be buffet, students eating at the dining hall will no longer have a tray on which to carry their food; they will use plates. This is similar to the style of the buffet in Edmondson Dining Room at Collins LLC.

The switch is an effort to “support and promote environmental awareness,” according to an e-mail from Residential Programs and Services.

The intent is to reduce water, electricity, chemical use and food waste.

“The thought is that students put a whole bunch of food on their tray, sit down, realize they are not that hungry and don’t eat it all,” Getty said. “Without trays, they will have to carry it so they won’t take as much, and there won’t be so much food waste.”

Getty, along with lead investigator Krisha Thiagarajah, another professor and lecturer in the Department of Applied Health Sciences, is researching exactly how much of a change the elimination of trays will make.

Last week, Thiagarajah and a team of student volunteers measured exactly how much food and beverage were wasted at Read.

“We collect and keep track of all the waste from the lunches and dinners this week. Then in October, once Read has gone trayless, during a week with the same menu, we will do it again and see the difference,” Getty said.

The volunteers said they were shocked at how much food students pick up and don’t finish.

“There is so much food waste. We have plates and plates that come in the dish room with whole meals on them,” said senior dietetics major Jessica Bolint. “Nothing touched except maybe a french fry. There are bowls that come in filled entirely with ketchup or sauce. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”

Getty, after a week of disposing hundreds of pounds of food, said she saw the wasteful habits of students as a result of generational and cultural issues.

“I’m old enough to look at you young folks, and I think people aren’t thinking about where their food comes from because in America we have an abundance,” she said.

And the waste isn’t just going in the trash. The switch to trayless might also teach students about portion control.

“Obesity rates in America are really on the rise,” Getty said. “There are a lot of people eating a whole lot more than they need to. Even if they’re not throwing it down the drain, it is waste if it’s going into your body and you don’t need it to.”

However, the focus of the trayless study at Read is on the environment.

Getty and Thiagarajah will publish the results of the investigation later this semester.

“It is important to see how much is actually being wasted so we can teach people not to take so much food,” said Camille Morse, study volunteer and School of Continuing Studies student. “The issue is the world and the environment. Just because you paid for it doesn’t mean you can use up the world’s resources  unnecessarily.”