In an effort to further Portland State’s reputation as a sustainable campus, the university is aiming to make the Ondine housing building’s dining hall a zero-waste facility.
The dining hall, Victor’s, will start by composting all food waste and making an effort to eliminate unnecessary packaging, said Laura Weiss, regional sustainability manager for PSU food service provider Aramark.
“The idea behind zero waste is to divert waste products from the landfill to the recycle bin,” Weiss said.The idea to make the dining hall zero-waste came out of Weiss’ attention to detail regarding the restaurant’s green practices.
“Laura noticed that most of the materials coming out of Victor’s were recycled or composted,” said Noelle Studer-Spevak, PSU’s sustainability coordinator. “Now she’s helping the hall look at ways to eliminate non-recyclable items like single-serving packets.”
Weiss also said other materials would continue to be recycled–even ones you wouldn’t necessarily expect.
“Recycling glass, aluminum, paper, and boxes will be fundamental in the process, but PSU also has a very eco-friendly and clever method of recycling cooking oil,” she said.
Encore Oil, the company responsible for supplying cooking oil to the dining hall, is a company owned by Sequential Pacific Biodiesel, a local company that promotes clean energy.
Portland State is in the process of setting up a relationship with the company, which would pay PSU for its used cooking oil, and in turn make it into bio-diesel fuel, Weiss said.
Students can also help with the process by limiting their food intake. Victor’s, located on Sixth Avenue, is an all-you-can-eat facility, she said, but in order to cut down on waste, students should only take what they can eat.
“Taste, don’t waste,” Weiss said. “It’s an overall mindset.”
Although there is no set date about when the dining hall is slated to be 100-percent zero waste, Weiss said getting the ball moving is still important.
“It’s a process,” she said. “A way of thinking and behaving.”
Studer-Spevack agreed, saying hopefully other parts of PSU will follow the Victor’s example.
“This is a direction that I hope the whole university goes, and not just the dining hall in Ondine,” she said.
A zero-waste Victor’s will also save the university money, Studer-Spevack said, because the less waste the university has, the less trash that is generated.
“Creating less waste will actually save PSU disposal costs,” she said.
Weiss also said that recycling the cooking oil will save money as well, because PSU will receive money from Sequential Pacific Biodiesel for the university’s used oil.
Other campuses have embarked on waste-reducing efforts–Studer-Spevak said that the University Of Washington has made recycling and composting a definitive goal, and Ohio University just had a major composting facility built onsite.
However, Weiss said PSU is leading the charge.
“Portland State is on the front end of the trend,” Weiss said. “I am not aware of any other dining hall in the country that has announced the goal of zero waste.”
PSU composted roughly 42 tons of food waste from Ondine Dining Hall last year, Weiss said. It’s much better to have been composted than gone to the landfill, but it would have been even better if it hadn’t been wasted in the first place, she said.
Students at Ondine feel that making Victor’s a zero-waste facility is a good idea for the university.
“It would be hard to find a student that disagreed with going zero waste,” said Ximena Lemoine, an anthropology major at Portland State. “It’s common sense.”
PSU student Stephanie Steiert, echoed these sentiments. “Makes sense,” she said.
Weiss said the biggest things students can do to help the process is to “be responsible for themselves in the dining hall.”
Their choices can make a difference, she said.