Waste management and waste minimization are critical components of sustainable practices aimed at reducing the environmental impact of human activities.
Food Waste Diversion and Recovery
Since the inception of the food diversion program in 1993, students and guests in the residential dining halls have been responsible for scraping their food waste and separating trash and recycling from their plates at dining hall collection spaces. In the past three years, Campus Dining has expanded to collect pre-consumer food scraps at large campus events that are hosted outside of dining halls. Campus Dining in partnership with the S.C.R.A.P. Lab, began a pilot in the fall of 2019 to encourage customers in the Frist Campus Center to sort their waste as the students would in the dining halls. In addition, we piloted post-consumer waste diversion in a satellite café to collect food scraps and compostable disposables.
Campus Dining and the Office of Sustainability were awarded a New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection grant to study and test new methods for using, collecting, and recycling compostable plastic products. The initial phase of the grant was to conduct a waste audit in the post-consumer waste collection of the Frist Campus Center dining outlet. The audit led to streamlining the number of single use service ware items and identifying better product alternatives and ultimately to the collection of post-consumer food waste as well as compostable disposables. A follow-up audit in the Fall of 2023 showed over a 50% reduction in items going into our landfill.
FOLLOW OUR PROGRESS
Our food harvest program began in the fall of 2018 with Butler and First dining halls, and extended to Forbes and Rockefeller and Mathey. Through our partnership with the Food Donation Connection our surplus food is shared with our harvest partner Bentley Community Services. This program is temporarily on hold.
Learn More about Composting at Princeton
Waste Oil
Fryer oil has been recycled since 2009. The recycled oil is sold as biodiesel and renewable diesel production.
Plastic Reduction
In summer of 2018, Campus Dining announced a plan to join in a campaign with the United Nations Environment Programme to dramatically reduce the amount of plastic used in our operations.
- Plastic water bottles have been replaced with aluminum cans from a Climate Neutral Certified and Women Owned company.
- Plastic bags have been replaced by paper bags available upon request.
- Plastic straws have been eliminated and replaced with compostable straws.
- Plastic utensils have been replaced by compostable utensils.
- Plastic takeout containers in the Frist Food Gallery have been replaced by compostable disposables where possible.
These are our steps in a long-term commitment to #BeatPlasticPollution.
Trayless Dining
Since 2009, dining halls have been tray free resulting in decreased food waste and increased water and energy savings due to less dishwashing. Savings were also realized by not purchasing and replacing plastic trays. Removing trays from dining halls was the first effort in plastic reduction.
Reusable and Compostable Service Ware
Residential
Campus Dining provides reusable service ware for all residential dining halls.
Retail
A pilot program to test reusable containers was launched in Summer 2024 at the Chemistry and EQuad cafes.
While reusable is the preferred choice, Campus Dining provides compostable takeout containers for many menu items served in retail operations. These items as well as post-consumer food scraps are collected at the Frist Campus Center Food Gallery and are processed on campus at the S.C.R.A.P. Lab in-vessel composter.
Catering
Campus Dining Catering has created innovative options that make reusables the more attractive option. Princeton Catering offers breakfast cottage jars served in reusable Mason jars.
Campus as a Lab
The Campus as Lab (CAL) program works actively with student and faculty researchers in using Princeton’s campus for sustainability research and experiential learning.