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Food waste tree sprouts at Geisert

A cutout of a tree has sprung up at the entrance of the Geisert cafeteria, with a series of numbers running up its trunk that mark the amount of food wasted on a weekly basis.

Currently, these numbers range between 900 and 1,000 pounds a week.

This Food Waste Tree is the latest program to come out of the annual food waste awareness campaign hosted by Dining Services.

“It all started in the spring of 2014, a few weeks before Earth Day, when we began to measure how much food was wasted in the dining halls,” Director of Dining Services Gayle Hanson said. “What we found was that, at least on the consumer side of things, around 268 pounds was wasted each day.”

In an effort to reduce this waste, Dining Services initiated the Clean Pledge Program, an educational initiative that encouraged students to embrace more sustainable eating habits. Dining Services considered it a great success.

“By the end of the program, we saw a drop of about 200 pounds a day, which is just huge,” Hanson said.

The Food Waste Tree follows last year’s Clean Plate Pledge program.

“I generally don’t pay much attention to it,” junior computer science major Eric Santos said. “I mean people are rushing to get food, so it’s not like I have much time to look at it while I’m walking in.”

However, some students said they are more affected by the program.

“I was shocked to see we wasted that much,” sophomore English major Zachary Dixon said. “But I guess when I really think about it, I’m not too surprised. Often when I drop off my plate, I see some of the other plates there, and I think to myself, ‘Did you just take one bite and finish?’”

Although the tree’s main function is to act as a public record of the university’s food waste, Hanson said she sees it as something more than just a measuring stick.

“Yes, the tree is a tracking mechanism, but it’s also a symbol of where we want to be, of the sustainable future we want to live in,” Hanson said. “The ultimate goal is to make students more aware of how their small choices can have a really big impact and of the responsibility that comes with that.”

The Food Waste Tree program will continue throughout the rest of the semester.

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