I recently received this comment from Brett, a student at Allegheny College, on his school’s dining practices:
the reasoning I get for the overpreparation is so they don’t run out of any item. The rationale is you are supposed to be able to come at the last minute of the meal (9:59 for breakfast, 1:29 for lunch, […]

As you may have noticed, there’s a new tab on the site: Trayless.
I consider the page my repository for keeping track of which colleges and universities are shunning trays to avoid food waste. Please let me know if I’ve missed your school–it’s very much a work in progress.
Also, the traylessness doesn’t have to be in […]

For you science-minded folks, here’s the Table of Condiments that Periodically Go Bad. I love the idea and the title, but disagree with some of the cautious estimates. When was the last time you threw away ketchup after five months (or spelled it ‘ketsup’)?
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This blogger and I could be fast friends. Check out her […]

I’ve often come across waste studies that estimate how much food isn’t eaten in a city or state. Since researchers aren’t sorting and weighing food waste at every home and restaurant, I often wonder how they come up with the estimates.
Now I have an answer. Page five of this 2002 Massachusetts food waste study lists […]

Expect some laid back composting at Jack Johnson’s Kokua Festival in Honolulu. While I’m diggin’ the concert’s sweet poster, all I can picture right now is Andy Samberg’s J.J. Casuals SNL faux-mercial.
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Might Massachusetts ban commercial food waste from landfills?
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In the wake of Harvard’s experiment to do away with trays (for four days), […]

How do I know this trayless dining hall thing is really taking off? Harvard is giving it a whirl.
As The Harvard Crimson reports, Quincy House will eliminate trays during Thursday dinners in February. While four nights isn’t a huge commitment, that hasn’t stopped students from complaining. To wit, this whiny lead:
The daily challenge of […]

The trayless college dining experiment is spreading and so are the media hits. An article in Inside Higher Ed about the practice led to a brief blog post on The Wall Street Journal’s site.
The Inside Higher Ed piece provided a nice detail to illustrate that some students, notably big eaters, oppose traylessness. Members of the […]

The trayless trend continues at college cafeterias…(who-hoo!)
As reported by its student newspaper, the University of Connecticut (UConn) will eschew trays at its Whitney Dining Hall in February. The environmental awareness campaign will begin with awareness day, then kick in the next Monday before running seven days the following week.
While the program’s main focus will be […]

I recently came across two seldom considered causes of food waste: electrical and mechanical.
Power outages, if they last long enough, can cause individuals and restaurants (small ones without a backup generator) to toss their perishables. As restaurants in Somerville, Mass., found out, this can be quite costly. In addition, the loss of food is wicked […]

Thought I’d pass along a few helpful household hints for minimizing waste. Thanks, Little Jelly’s Belly.
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On to one of my favorite topics: cafeteria traylessness. New York’s Morrisville State College is doing a Trayless on Tuesdays experiment in February.
If that’s not cool enough, they’re raffling off a Zune just for participating. Insert crotchety ‘when I […]