As
our contribution to the MIT Ecological Footprint Project, we decided to assess
the environmental impacts of MIT's dining services. How much waste was being
produced? What were some of the earth-friendly practices…and not-so-friendly
practices that dining halls were employing? What improvements could be made?
In order to begin addressing these questions, we first had to find out how dining on campus is structured and who is actually responsible for what. As of 2002/2003, MIT has contracts with three food service companies: Sodexho, Bon Appétit, and Aramark. Sodexho operates the multiple food court and café-style venues including Walker Dining Hall, Lobdell Food Court, Pritchett Grill, Pritchett Convenience, Building 4 Coffee Shop, Dome Café, Bio Café/ Subvisions, Bosworth's, and East Side Café. Bon Appétit, on the other hand, operates the three main residential dining facilities: Baker House Dining, Simmons Dining, and Next House Dining. Aramark provides campus catering services.
Given
our limited time, we decided to focus our efforts on the three Bon Appétit
venues and the two largest Sodexho eateries, Lobdell and Walker. We also chose
to narrow our assessment to three major concerns in waste stream management:
composting, packaging, and recycling. Thus, we do not claim that this project
represents a fully comprehensive evaluation of MIT's dining services nor that
it covers all aspects of environmental impacts for even the five chosen venues
(we did not, for instance, look at energy and water consumption). Nevertheless,
we feel that the assessments and many of the suggestions we have made will be
broadly relevant to all MIT dining facilities.
In the process of gathering data and information for this report, we had the opportunity to meet and converse with many people from MIT Dining Services as well as with several managers, chefs, and kitchen staff from both Bon Appétit and Sodexho-run establishments. We also met with representatives from MIT's Environmental ProgramsTask Force, and the Working Group Recycling Task Group as well as the with student environmental group SAVE. What we found is that despite good intentions on all sides, the lines of communication between these various groups are often leaky. Our goal for this website is not to point fingers at any one party, but instead to provide a frank evaluation of the current state of affairs and to encourage steps in a "greener" direction.
It
is our vision that anyone with an interest in the environmental impacts of MIT
dining might benefit from the assortment of educational and contact information
gathered here. MIT can present a rather unwieldy network of departments, offices,
committees, subcommittees--we hope this site helps people to channel their questions,
concerns, and suggestions to where they will be most effectively heard.