Going Green

[Nashida]

The Caf is starting a new policy today.

Every Friday this semester will be Trayless. This means that when you enter the Caf, you don't get a tray to put your stuff on. They're trying this to reduce food wastes that go down the drain, and also to use less water when they wash dishes.

There's two trays near where Dishroom is that people just pile their stuff on.

Now, we haven't done something like this since Earth Day '07, and we quickly abandoned the idea because students would just leaves their dirty dishes on the tables and expect us to come around and bus them. We didn't get out of there until almost 10:00 at night because we had to clean up all that stuff. Last year, they used styrofoam cups, plates, and trays rather than our plastic stuff.

I've also heard rumors that next semester it will be completely trayless....I'm kind of glad this is my last semester here.

[Broomjockey]

I'm sorry, this is bar none, the worst idea they could have come up with for a cafeteria. If you want people to clear their stuff, make it easy for them.

Now, a GOOD idea would have been switch to an eco-friendly detergent, re-route the waste water to a collection tank, and use it to water the grounds.

[Nashida]

That would make sense, but my school is famous for not making sense.

"Let's have the sprinklers go off when it's raining! We'll save water!"
"Let's tear up <street the school's on> one week before they go back, so they'll wake up to jackhammers instead of their alarms and actually go to class!"
"Let's change the school's insignia so Squanto holds his spear upright, because we are a peaceful state college!"

and so on and so forth.


Tonight, with the trayless thing, I was very surprised that the campus cleaned up after itself. There was scarcely anything on the tables. I did have a few students tell me they want to write letters to the newspaper about the whole ordeal and how stupid it was (heck, even our Green Team thought it was the most ridiculous thing since Blah-Blah-Gate).

Whether or not the bosses listen is another story.

[mattm04]

Recently my school went trayless, er, tryfree as it is now called. They could not justify the cost so they used grant money to buy new plates. They didn;t even have enoug money to buy all new plates so they have all four old styles in use and four new sytle sin use. Kinda goes aganist their "creates a unified exciting look" slogan

I noticed a huge increase in the dirtiness of the floor which correlates with the dropped plates of food as students try to carry plate, flatware and drinks along with any other stuff. Also the people who are supposed to clean up the dining room have had to assume that any plate w/o a person is abandoned. So if you get food set plate down to get a drink or maybe a salad and the staff sees it, bye, by food.

The biggest issue I have seen is that people who are in wheelchair or disabled in some way, either say a cast or a permanent issue find it to be very hard or impossible to get their own food.

[Nashida]

To tell the truth I'm glad I graduate this fall, so I don't have to be here when they go completely trayless. The shit's gonna hit the fan then.

I was lucky last Friday was pretty easy, but I've got the feeling this will all go downhill from there. We've already had double the breakage since then because the kids have to balance all their stuff.

[Teskeria]

This is an issue for people with a physical handicap. They may end up with some lawsuits. (people are sue-happy). I myself require a tray, and at that, I have to carry it one handed (thank goodness for waitressing experience) as I require a cane to walk. They really ought to check whether going trayless puts them against ADA (or equiv)