Sodexo moves toward trayless services

By William Duffee

Earlham students will soon be carrying their dishes in their own two hands, as Sodexo plans to reduce the use of food trays in the dining hall after spring break.

The change is part of a push for sustainability in a setting known for its substantial use of resources such as water and energy.

“We’re going to take away all of the trays in the different areas and just have trays over by the belts,” said Director of Dining Services Kathie Guyler.

While the reduction of trays is one step toward trayless services, Guyler hopes to change the whole system over the summer.

“Hopefully by the time students come back next year, we’ll be able to get the dish room kind of remodeled … a new belt, a new way of conveying dishes down where we’re not using trays,” she said.

According to Guyler, the new system would “replace the dish machine that we have that is 20 years old with a newer, more energy-efficient [machine], using less water [and] detergent.”

Guyler has been working this semester with the Earlham Environmental Action Coalition (EEAC) on how Saga will move towards a new system.

In an e-mail she sent to EEAC on Tuesday, March 9, Guyler attached a “Sodexo Dining Initiative” document, which outlines the benefits of trayless dining.

The document says that “[e]lectricity, water and chemical usage are reduced because there are far fewer dishes and trays to wash,” and that eliminating trays “substantially diminishes food waste by encouraging guests to take only the amount of food they can carry.”

The e-mail also included a statement about Sodexo’s elimination of trays in 2009 at Franklin College, in Franklin, Ind. Earlham and Franklin are roughly the same size. Franklin has 1,047 undergraduate students, compared to Earlham’s current 1,127, so the results could be comparable.

The statement says that in a three-month period of trayless dining at Franklin in 2009, “318,000 gallons of water has been conserved in 2009 compared to the same 3-month period (August, September, & October) of 2008. If we continue on this same trend, it is estimated that over a 12-month period, we will conserve over one million gallons of water in the studentcenter.”

However, opponents of trayless dining say that it is too much of a hassle and contributes to additional traffic, which could result in more congestion and longer lines in the cafeteria.

“You’d have to go back and forth from the table to the food line a lot more,” said junior Bill Rubin. “That would be aggravating.”

Some Earlham students are more receptive to the idea of a trayless cafeteria.

“I’ve never used trays; I think they’re pointless … they’re sort of wasteful and unnecessary,” said junior Lucas Williams.

The discussion of a trayless system at Saga is not new, however.

Junior Mary Jones, a member of EEAC, said that Sodexo and the Earlham Environmental Responsibility Committee (EERC) “got funding last year to pay for a trayless washer system to wash all the dishes.” However, the funding was not enough to cover the new system.

Guyler mentioned that the cost of a new system would be risky. “We actually started looking at this project last year and really ran into budget issues. It was really expensive to do what we needed to do,” she said. “You don’t want to make that kind of error in terms of spending the money and not getting the reward back.”

The move towards trayless services comes as a part of Saga’s plan for more sustainable services as a whole.

“We’re looking at what we can do here – how can we minimize our waste, how can we make our carbon footprint smaller?”

Guyler said, noting that this year Saga began recycling more plastics than in the past.

Other possible changes would include a new composting system. Currently, a student bikes most of the compost to Miller Farm each day, but Guyler admitted such an arrangement is “not the best way to transport” the compost and noted that the student cannot transport all the compost by bike. But again, a new system would not be cheap — Guyler approximated a new system to cost $25,000.

Freshman Stephanie Ambar, who has discussed sustainable practices with Guylar, feels that students need to put more of an effort into working together with Saga on such issues.

“Be sustainable, but through a consensus,” Ambar said. She also mentioned that though Saga has areas which could be improved in sustainability, the responsibility is not solely Saga’s.

“It’s not just Saga’s fault for some things that are not happening, it’s also … our [the students’] lack of commitment,” she said. “I think it is something that we need … to have more participation of the students, and they [Saga’s staff] are open for that.”