Food Group
Appendix E: Food Waste Study

Description of our Food Waste Study

With the cooperation of many of the CK staff, we developed and implemented a plan to measure food waste in the colleges.  This waste consists of two parts:  "plate waste," or food which is served and then discarded, and "kitchen waste," or food which is prepared but neither served nor kept for later reheating.  We focused on collecting the plate waste, but were generally unsuccessful in gauging the kitchen waste. However, since CK reuses most of the prepared food, this latter measure may not significantly affect our findings.

The study consisted of attending dinner at a college (both family style and late plate) and collecting all of the waste from the tables and students' trays.  We separated the food into the following categories:

After accumulating the waste, we weighed each category and recorded the amounts.

Summary and Analysis of Findings

Due to time constraints and one experience with a faulty scale, our results are based on the following three data sets.

Amount of Meat Collected
Amount of Other Food Collected
Amount of Paper and Plastic Trash
Baker College (2/24/98)
13 lbs.
43 lbs.
17 lbs.
Lovett College (3/10/98)
7 lbs.
50 lbs.
9 lbs.
Brown College (3/11/98)
1 lb.
40.5 lbs.
11.5 lbs.

From the averaged results of these three collection experiments, we made rough estimates of Rice's yearly output in each category.  These estimates involve several assumptions which we based on guesstimates:  lunches and brunches create similar amounts of waste to dinners, breakfasts create about 1/2 as much, and the colleges are open full-time for eight months (32 weeks) each year.  Our results are as follows:

Amount Per Dinner**
Amount Per Year
Percent of Total Waste
Compostable Waste
44.5 lbs.
153,792 lbs.
69.5%
Meat Products Waste
7 lbs.
24,192 lbs.
10.9%
Paper and Plastic Waste
12.5 lbs.
43,200 lbs.
19.5%
** based on an average of 106 students dining

When viewed as yearly output the waste adds up.  The food accounts for the vast majority of the tonnage due to its high density, yet almost all of the food can be reused through composting.  The paper and plastic trash account for the vast majority of CK waste, so there is much opportunity for waste reduction in this area.
 
 

Problem 2: Waste Reduction

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