When trying to eliminate polystyrene to-go containers, the University of Maryland realized the easiest way to reduce to-go waste was to encourage students to simply stay and eat in the dining hall. Bart Hipple, assistant director of communications for Dining Services, talks about how this realization led to the creation of the Eat IN-itiative.
At 37,000-student University of Maryland in College Park, Dining Services made a New Year's resolution to eliminate polystyrene to-go containers. During that process, the department realized what they should really focus on was reducing the number of carry-out containers overall that students use. Thus, the Eat IN-itiative was born. Bart Hipple, assistant director of communications for Dining Services, recounts how the initiative was implemented.
"We switched from using polystyrene products to using Bagasse clamshells, which are compostable and recyclable. Through this process, we discovered what we actually wanted people to do was reduce the amount of carry out they were using. It wasn't as valuable to switch from one to the other as it would be to totally reduce the amount of carry-out containers. Last year, resident students used about 464,000 carry-out containers, which is about 66 per student. With this initiative, we want to reduce that number by 15%.
We wanted to change our message from "We offer carry-out options everywhere we serve food" to "Please eat in and use our china, glass and silver." So we decided to call it the Eat IN-itiative. We officially launched it on the first day back after winter break. Throughout the fall semester, we said it was our New Year's resolution to have no more foam in Dining Services. Right after Thanksgiving, we put up posters that showed what the old containers looked like compared to the new ones. The new ones are not exactly the same size and shape, so we wanted people to know about the change in advance. We left that same demo piece up for the first couple of weeks of school so it would minimize shock.
We put up signs, table tents and advertisements on the buses. By working with resident life, we were able to put up our goals and expectations in all the residence halls. The signage encouraged students to plan ahead to meet friends in the dining hall, and we explained how dining in helped keep costs down because the new containers are more expensive than the Styrofoam. If we use the same number of these containers as the old ones, it will impact the cost of the dining plan because these are almost three times as expensive. The signage also explained that dining in allows you to enjoy your food more because it's at its best-hot food is hot and cold food is cold. There is also easier clean-up and easier logistics because we provide napkins, tableware, condiments, tables and chairs. Finally, we said if you can't eat in, remember to bring your carry-out container back to the dining hall so they can be composted correctly.
We also have been talking with our line serving staff about how they should assume people are eating in. We want to make sure that the customer asks for a carry-out container and the staff doesn't just assume.
We're all à la carte here so we're trying to figure out how we can we get a carry-out container to someone who doesn't finish and wants to take leftovers with them. That's one of the reasons people will get carry-out containers and then eat in the dining halls-they're afraid they'll have leftovers. So how do we give them an exit strategy if that happens? That is what we are working on now, trying to figure out how to reduce the number of unnecessary carry-out containers used.
We've learned that it's not easy to change an attitude. The student attitude is that carry-out is very much part of the culture here.
We've learned that there are a significant number of students who are not environmentally conscious and environmental arguments don't resonate with them. So our back-up angle has been the financials, which reaches some students and doesn't reach others. We've learned that we need to bring in allies. So we're working with residence life, facility maintenance and transportation services to get people onboard with the plan."