Matthew Biette, director of dining services at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., is a strong advocate for trayless dining. He feels especially strongly about making the switch in one fell swoop rather than making the change gradually. Here, he talks about why.
Matthew Biette, director of dining services at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., talks about how his department’s sudden switch—versus a gradual switch—to trayless dining was the better way to go. “We heard about other schools removing trays and we thought it was a good idea. The college has made a commitment to be carbon neutral by 2016, so we decided more action was needed and less talk. We serve 1.5 million meals per year and if 80% took trays that would be 1.2 million trays to wash. The heat load the dishwashers emit on the building is overwhelming so this will potentially keep our employees cooler. We first removed trays during freshman summer orientation. It was easy for the first-year students since they didn’t have any institutional memory. Once the entire student body arrived, we started receiving vocal complaints, written complaints and a minor bit of protest—people not clearing the table when they left—but it died out as the students got used to the change. It seems to me, if you’re going to do this, it needs to be in one fell swoop at the beginning of the semester rather than a trial here and there. With so many years of grabbing a tray in all of our memories, it’s difficult to get past the habit, but overall, it’s very positive for the environment and our budgets.”