Dining areas should visibly promote green practices

Dining on Carnegie Mellon’s campus has been steadily improving this semester, as a board editorial observed in the Sept. 24 issue of The Tartan.

There is a wider variety of eatery options on campus, and the food quality has improved this semester. But efforts by Carnegie Mellon Housing and Dining Services on campus to promote sustainability may be the most delicious change on campus yet.

Signs that discourage rampant food waste have appeared at multiple campus dining locations, such as Tazza D’Oro and The Underground. One sign, located in The Underground, reads, “20 million people could live off the food WE waste. LOVE FOOD hate waste.”

Promoting sustainability is a noble cause, and one that students can really get behind. Locations like Schatz Dining Room have had separate receptacles for compost for some time now, and having these signs located at campus dining locations serves to further remind students and faculty to consider the ramifications of wasting food.

This move toward sustainable practices is a state of mind that the entire university is adopting. The construction of Scott Hall, future home to the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation, is a great indicator of the measures our university is taking to address the energy and sustainability needs of the 21st century.

However, sustainable practices may not be enough to discourage students and faculty from retaining harmful dining practices. While signs at campus dining locations are a great step, Housing and Dining Services should make further efforts to discourage their customers from wasting food and energy. These efforts also need to be made highly visible to influence the campus community to take their own that environmentally-conscious measures.

Housing and Dining Services, and Carnegie Mellon as a whole, should be commended for their efforts to encourage, research, and promote sustainable practices. Hopefully this trend and mindset will continue to guide the actions of the administration and the members of the campus community.