After years of enduring the shittiest that shit has to offer in food service at Hunter College, Sodexo has been replaced with a new food vendor, AVI. For sustainably-minded students like myself, this is extremely exciting news for several reasons: 1) finding food that doesn't break the bank but is still within walking distance and marginally appetizing on the Upper East Side is really quite challenging, and 2) AVI promises to improve the sustainability of the food services at Hunter. Some of the exciting things their contract contains include:
• Work with Hunter on developing a rooftop garden to grow herbs and vegetables for its menus.
• Introduce a tray-less food service program to limit waste.
• Provide eco-friendly packaging made from corn-based polymers and recycled paper.
• Use only non-toxic, biodegradable cleaning products.
• Provide drinking fountains with paper cups made from recycled materials.
• Recycle used cooking oil for conversion into bio-diesel.
• Partner with New York Presbyterian Hospital’s successful composting program.
Hark! Did someone say composting? Well, sort of...
I walked into Tuesday's Sustainability Council meeting and was greeted by a schmorgazborg of breakfast goodies provided by AVI. Notwithstanding the vast array of free mini-danishes at my disposal, I was most impressed by the plates, cups, cutlery, etc, which were all compostable, made from recycled paper or corn starch. AWESOME! "This is too good to be true!" I thought. Then the cloud of doubt set in. AVI had clearly stuck to their vow to use eco-friendly packaging--and compostable packing at that--but were they planning to provide composting bins in the cafeteria to receive this eco-waste? I dared to ask this question, only to find out that my good friend Rion had raised the same question earlier in the meeting (yes, I was late. yes, i had a good excuse.)
According to AVI's spokesperson at the meeting, there was no need for this compostable cutlery to deserve special treatment in the waste stream...it would simply be composted in the landfill.
Ummm....WHAT?! This is bogus for at least 2 reasons, one of which requires a basic understanding of 7th grade science, and both of which require the capacity for common sense. Most organic matter biodegrades aerobically, or with oxygen. Typically, things break down best with a cocktail of oxygen, water and organisms like worms or microbes. When a landfill is sealed up, water and oxygen (and most likely, earthworms) are pretty much shut out. Hence the reason why you can go to a landfill and dig up a largely intact banana peel, 50 years post-consumption. Doesn't everyone know this? Apparently not.
Next, the benefits of compostable cutlery made from recycled materials are three-fold: 1) you reduce the amount of raw natural materials required to produce new products; 2) you decrease the amount of solid waste entering our limited landfill space; and 3) you create a useful product in the process--compost, which can be used in your garden to grow healthy, tasty plants sans synthetic fertilizer. Eureka!
So long story short, it looks like the students on the Sustainability Council will continue fighting an uphill battle in our quest to knock some sense into the silly, misinformed administrators of good old HC. Props to Hunter Solar Project for representin' in a serious way. And props to AVI for their early attempts at improving the sustainability of Hunter's food service. Lack of common sense aside, you're already a billion times better than Sodexo, and your coffee's pretty good, too. Keep the mini-danishes a-flowin' !
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Great entry Gwen!
ReplyDeleteWe definitely do need composting bins in Hunter's cafeteria, and I think that we can push this forward with Hunter administration by:
1) Researching the quantifiable environmental benefits of composting (so the Sustainability Council can claim credit)
2) Drafting a press release on Hunter's new sustainable dining services, and creating positive PR for Hunter
By providing Hunter College with recognition and praise for their environmental commitments, the institution will be more likely to continue to move in the right direction - slowly but surely.
When a landfill is sealed up, water and oxygen (and most likely, earthworms) are pretty much shut out. Hence the reason why you can go to a landfill and dig up a largely intact banana peel, 50 years post-consumption.
ReplyDeleteJessica was watching one of those true crime shows on TV one time, and the police had a confession from a man who had put a body into a dumpster. (Stop me if this is too graphic for your readers.) The police were able to track down the landfill the body would have gone to, and then the workers there were able to isolate the plot of land that the body would have been in based on when it was dumped.
Anyway, they were able to find the body this way, and I had no idea that landfills would be so organized and also that, like you said, things would be so preserved in them.