The Sept. 23 editorial, "Going trayless won't solve bigger problems" was both disappointing and misinformed. From the very first line in the editorial, which referenced going trayless as being the "single solution introduced for lessening waste at UConn," the author clearly demonstrated that he hadn't done his research before committing his personal opinions to paper as facts.
UConn is currently pursuing a number of initiatives designed to minimize waste on campus. Among these are an improved recycling program complete with new indoor and outdoor bins and outreach efforts that helped raise UConn's recycling volume by 28 percent last year, an electronic waste recycling program, funding is in place and planning is underway for a compost facility that would reduce tons of agricultural and landscaping waste, and new Sustainable Office Guidelines emphasizing ways in which UConn employees can save waste at work every day have been introduced. Reusable EcoHusky mugs sold at all of the cafes on campus replace thousands of non-recyclable paper coffee cups that would have ended up as trash, and a discount is offered to those bringing their mug to a café for a refill.
Northwest is the only dining hall which requires the use of trays with the conveyor belt when returning dishes to the washing station. But to be logical, there's simply no comparison between the limited number of trays cycling through to return dishes and the number of trays needing to be washed if every student were using one in every dining hall across campus. Dining Services staff have reassured me that the trays being used at Northwest are washed and sanitized but simple math should prove that there's still a large volume of water being saved.
As far as taking the trays not meant for use other than on the conveyor belts, this would only result in long lines to return dishes and a huge inconvenience for everyone trying to fit a meal into their busy schedules.
-Jennifer Sayers, the acting Sustainability Coordinator for UConn's Office of Environmental Policy
Apparently, if we brought back the trays, not only would tuition drop, but no one would get diseases, and we'd finally realize that the environment sucks. No one would drop plates because trays are scientifically proven to cancel the effects of gravity, and even if one did, you'd catch them with the four extra Vishnu arms we'd all sprout. Imagine the utopia we would all live in if we just brought back the trays. It seems like only months ago the whole world rejoiced in the ecstasy that was trayhood. Life just seems so inane and empty now that those lovely plastic rectangles have been mercilessly ripped from our loving embrace. Oh, the humanity! Now, the university faces a crisis. Children are annihilating dishes at an unprecedented rate. It is estimated that every minute, $14,689 trillion worth of ceramics are sacrificed to the environmentalist cause. Dozens of human beings die every day from exhaustion and dehydration caused by making multiple grueling trips to the buffet line. Not only that, but the number of trays actually in use behind the scenes has multiplied 12-fold, and washing all of them has caused a drought in Sudan that will last 1,000 years. Don't believe the Whitney dining hall Experiments-they're simply part of a vast environmentalist conspiracy that is secretly orchestrated by none other than Osama bin Laden.
Now, at the dawn of a new era, the forces of evil seek to destroy our very way of life. Since the day I was born I have carried food on a plate, which was on a tray. How do you think Jesus fed 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish in the Bible? He put them on a plate, which was on a tray.
You see, the divine properties of a rectangular plasticoidal enumerate the ditrivilatiums of Byzantine, and quadract the isosceles flux capacitor purple. In this manner, all of the world's problems are solved. It is so very painfully simple, and yet all the eco-freaks are trying to make us discard the one thing that separates us from the animals. When the winter comes, how do you expect us to sled?
And so, my dear friends, my loving compatriots, let us make our voices loud and clear to our now-out-of-the-closet-communists (the administration): Give me trays, or give me death!
-Blayne Sapelli, a 5th-semester student
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