purpose      methodology      complete results       summary

* Simmons Dining Hall is currently under construction and should be operational in February of 2003. Where will Simmons rank in the future?

Purpose
One of the most effective ways of drawing attention to environmental concerns and promoting eco-friendly practices is through mechanisms of disclosure. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has demonstrated this with the success of Scorecard, a website dedicated to toxic pollutants in the environment. Scorecard is essentially a series of rankings that draws upon a vast database of toxicology reports and demographic statistics. By entering their zipcode, users can see, for instance, a list of the top contributors to air pollution in that area. Rankings can be generated for a number of other things including water contamination, superfund cleanup sites, toxic industrial pollutants.

The simple act of making this information open to the public has proven highly effective in stimulating progressive actions. No company, for obvious reasons, wants to be granted the distinction of "best polluter in the state"; conversely, the prospect of being singled out as a "best practice" institution provides a powerful positive incentive to change.

With EDF's Scorecard in mind, we thought it would be informative to create a Scorecard for the five MIT dining facilities included in our project (Lobdell, Next House, Baker House, and Simmons).

Methodology
We visited these venues in person and took inventory of all reusable (washable) dishes and utensils as well as all disposable tableware (plastic to-go boxes, paper cups, plastic bottles, plastic utensils, Styrofoam items). We also took noted the availability of bulk-serve items versus individually wrapped items, accessibility/availability of recycling bins, and use of fountain-style beverage machines versus bottled beverages.

In total, we identified twelve environmentally friendly items or practices to assess (see table below). For each such "green" option offered, we awarded two points if this was the only option available, one point if it was offered alongside the non-environmentally friendly option, and zero points if no green choice was available. For example, if a certain place provided both stainless steel flatware and plastic utensils, that dining hall was awarded one "green" point. If stainless steel had been the only option available, it would have been awarded two points (none of the venues got two points in this category, by the way.)

Complete Results

Summary
Clearly, Next House-according to our inventories and observations-emerged as the most environmentally friendly dining facility of the five. It should be noted that Next, Baker, and Simmons have the advantage in this analysis over Walker and Lobdell. As residential dining venues, they are better able to provide students with porcelain dishware and reusable items than are the centrally located high-volume dining venues. Still, as the results show, there was significant discrepancy among the three residential dining facilities when it came to eco-friendly practices. Next House, for instance, was the only residential venue to participate in composting and to heavily emphasize the use of porcelain dishes and reusable utensils. The poor showing by Simmons is likely to be attributable to its temporary status as a catered-to operation.

Located right at the center of campus, Lobdell gets by far the most traffic of any meal venue. An average of 1200 people stream through the food court each day-most of those in the course of a single hour. Even with this high volume, however, Lobdell and Walker could have scored better by offering more reusable dishware and bulkserve items. Their emphasis on take-out service generates a significant amount of packaging waste. According to our numbers on amounts of trash, the food court-style establishments on the whole generate significantly more trash* per person than do the residential dining venues. The average meal at Baker Dining, for instance, produces around half a pound* of trash (food and non-food waste), while the average meal at Walker produces 1.25-2.1(note: not sure why this is so high...we are still trying to get accurate stats on garbage) pounds of garbage.

For the fun illustrations of the environmentally friendly and not-so-friendly practices in each dining venue, please visit the appropriate link:

• Baker Dining
• Lobdell Food Court
• Next House Dining
• Simmons Dining
• Walker Dining

* Our estimates of trash generated are highly conservative, given that many people take food out of dining facilities and dispose of their waste elsewhere on campus. This is true, however, at both food-court and residential style venues, so we think a comparison of the two will not be disproportionately skewed by take-out trash.