Trayless Experiment Successful

By: Kate King

Posted: 3/6/08

Students may have to make a second trip to grab their soda, but eliminating trays in the dining hall significantly reduces food waste, according to a recently completed study on waste reduction at UConn.

The three-week-long experiment, conducted by Dining Services and the Office of Environmental Policy (OEP), was designed to see if taking away trays during dinner reduces food waste, according to Ben Plourde, a 6th-semester biological sciences and physics major who is working on the experiment through OEP.

The experiment ended Sunday and the results show that trayless dinners reduced the total amount of waste produced by diners by 19 percent and the average amount of waste produced per person by 30 percent, according to data provided by Susan O'Keefe, Whitney area manager.

The first week of the experiment, which was Feb. 11 through Feb. 17, served as the control segment of the study with trays available as usual during dinner, Plourde said. During that week, dining services and OEP measured the amount of waste produced each day except Wednesday, when a power outage at Towers dining hall sent more students to Whitney than usual.

Whitney dining hall produced an average of 3.2 ounces of food waste per person each night, according to Plourde. The total amount of waste for the six days amounted to 290.5 pounds.

The second week of the experiment was devoted to educating dining hall patrons about the experiment and food waste, Plourde said. On Monday, trays were not available in the dining hall in order to make students aware of the ongoing experiment. For the rest of the week, trays were available as was material such as posters and table tents educating students about food waste reduction.

The trays were taken away during dinner for the entire third week of the experiment and researchers measured the total amount of waste produced every night with the exception of Feb. 27. On this day, there was a special event menu that featured ribs, which produced bone waste that would have skewed the study's results, O'Keefe said. The total waste produced over the six days was 236 pounds, which was about 19 percent lower than the control week. The average waste produced per person about 2.3 pounds, or about 30 percent lower than the first week of the experiment.

"We did in fact have less waste without trays," O'Keefe said.

The survey demonstrated significant waste reduction even though more people visited the dining hall during the trayless dinner week than the control week, according to the results. During the control week 1,409 people ate dinner at Whitney dining hall while 1,638 people ate there during the week without dinner trays.

Dinner waste, which includes only food waste and not beverage or napkin garbage, was measured by putting the waste in trash cans and then weighing it on a large floor scale, according to O'Keefe. The researchers then subtracted the weight of the trash can and divided the weight of the waste by the number of the people who ate at the dining hall that night.

In addition to food waste, trayless dinners appear to save energy and water used by the dishwashing machines, according to the results. During the control week when trays were used, 702 dish racks passed through the dishwashing machine while only 536 were used during trayless dinners.

The reduction in dish rack usage provides "a good indication that there was some substantial water and energy saving," said Dan Britton, sustainability coordinator for OEP. Further calculations will need to be done to determine how many gallons of water and the amount of energy were saved, however.

In light of the study's results, "I think we are going to see more trayless options happening around campus," O'Keefe said, adding that a meeting will be set up, most likely after spring break, to discuss future trayless dining.

One way the university is considering a movement toward trayless dining will be to try to create a "culture change," among students, according to Dennis Pierce, director of dining services.

"In order to change the culture of a community you really need to change the mechanisms of the first-year students," Pierce said. "As students come to us this summer through orientation … the proposal given to me is that we will not be offering trays this summer. The idea is trying to get students oriented into [trayless dining]."

Student reactions to trayless dinners will be a major factor in considering whether or not to eliminate trays at Whitney permanently.

"We certainly don't want this to be something people will hate, but it's the right thing to do at the same time," said Denise Beal, assistant director of dining services.

For Bethany Ober, an 8th-semester English major, the educational week of the experiment was an effective method for cutting down on food waste.

"For me personally, since they started talking about it, I made a conscious effort not to take everything I want to try but only what I'm going to eat," said Ober, who learned about food waste reduction from table tents provided by dining services and OEP. "I don't think the trays have anything to do with it."

Katy Laguzza, an 8th-semester puppetry major, didn't mind the trayless dining experience, however.

"I think it's a good thing and that people should stop being wimps and make more than one trip [to get their food]," Laguzza said.

Trayless dining is something that Colby College has been exploring for about four years now, according to Joe Klaus, associate director of dining services at Colby College. Every Thursday, Colby does not offer trays at two out of the campus's three dining halls. The college has also taken away trays at the request of student groups on certain days that coincide with environmental events on campus, Klaus said. The trayless meals cut down on food waste by about one third.

Although there is a dedicated environmental movement at Colby, there are also an increasing number of students who do not support trayless dining, according to Klaus. These students don't like the inconvenience of trayless dining and have protested it in a number of ways. Some members of the football team use chairs to carry their food on when trays are not available in the dining hall, Klaus said. The college's woodsmen team protests trayless dining by chopping up foot long wooden disks and bringing them to the dining hall.

"We've had some creativity," Klaus said.

Contact Kate King at

Katherine.King@UConn.edu.