Friday, April 25, 2008
Students who ate at Mrs. E’s on Tuesday went without trays as part of an Earth Day experiment to determine whether taking their trays away would reduce the amount of food students waste.
Student volunteers collected the table scraps from plates sent to the dish room and compared the weight and volume of the food and liquid waste to what they collected April 15, when students did have trays.
The results suggest that students wasted 100 pounds more food when they had trays, but Nona Golledge, director of KU Dining Services, said those results may be inaccurate.
“I don’t feel comfortable with the results quite yet because we did realize there are a lot of variables in the experiment that could have impacted the results,” Golledge said.
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Students who ate at Mrs. E’s had mixed feelings about the new concept.
The two variables were a different number of students and a different menu served on the two days.
Golledge said she would like to see the experiment conducted multiple times before she trusted the results.
“If we do it again, we’d like to serve the same menu on both days because that would give us more accurate information,” she said.
The University of Kansas wouldn’t be the first school to implement such a concept.
According to a report issued by KU Dining Services, Ohio State University removed trays from its food services, which resulted in a 28 percent decrease in the amount of food students wasted. Each student wasted 2.52 ounces less per meal when they didn’t have trays, according to the report.
Sarah Houfaidi, an Overland Park sophomore who was one of the four student-volunteers who collected food waste, said she noticed a significantly lower amount of food waste when students didn’t have trays.
“There’s only been one plate per person as opposed to multiple plates because they don’t have as much space to carry as many without trays,” Houfaidi said.
Students who ate at Mrs. E’s had mixed feelings about the new concept.
Emily Bergman, St. Benedict freshman, said she hated not having a tray.
“It’s a lot of work because I have to take two trips to get everything I want,” she said. “I don’t think it would reduce weight for me because I know what I want, but it could for others.”
Kasey Miller, St. Louis freshman, said she didn’t mind not having a tray.
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal because that way people won’t get 10 million things they won’t eat,” she said. “You know what will suck though, bringing all this crap back to the conveyer belt thing once I’m done.”
If multiple experiments prove that taking trays from students significantly reduces food waste, Golledge said her department would not take trays away until it collected sufficient feedback from students.
“We would definitely get student input on this,” she said.
— Edited by Jared Duncan
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Comments
Dining trays may cause students to waste more food
Editor, You have a responsibility to be accurate, dilligent, and objective. This article has no business having the title "Dining trays may cause students to waste more food". Most of the article gives reasons for why the test was not accurate, yet the title infers there is more of a probability that using trays results in more food wasted. Nona Golledge is right, there are so many variables that have to be accounted for in a study like this (the menu, weather, customers, etc.) that one day's test should not have been taken seriously. There are so many flaws with this study that I'm wondering why it warranted a newspaper article.
I commend you for printing Nona Golledge's comments for accuracy of the study. The trend these days is to gather only the comments that buttress the story line. Once this is done, news transforms into becomming pure propaganda. You're half way there with this title.
The purpose of a newspaper is to provide facts, not to attempt to further one's own beliefs. It's natural to try to persuede others to beleive as one does, but as a newspaper journalist/editor, you're #1 responsibility is to remain objective knowing that the temptation to persuede should be avaoided at the cost of losing your integrity. Lose your integrity, and you've lost all. The title of this article should have been "Food tray study incomplete" or "Infinite variables hinder food tray study" or "First day of one year food tray study begins". It may not be sexy, but it's accurate, objective, and truthful. D. Cook
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