Sustainability/Waste

SUSTAINABILIT Y AT NORTH WES TERN UNIVERSIT Y DI N I NG

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY FOOD SERVICES

SUSTAINING CAMPUS DINING/ WASTE Compass started Northwestern in June of 2018. With this change, came new sustainability initiatives and protocols that sought to revolutionize dining sustainability at Northwestern. One of these initiatives took the form of the composting program. The creation of this composting and waste diversion program is designed to look at more than simply correctly sorting waste. Composting reduces the impact of food waste by creating healthy soils for growing plants and enhancing water quality The long-term implications of this initiative not only address intergenerational concerns of environmental degradation, but also positively effects current day to day operations. The increased demand for attention to detail that the program requires has benefited operations outside of the composting initiative. Additionally, overcoming the challenges of implementation helped management and employees develop a network of resources that allowed the team to function together seamlessly. Economically speaking, these initiatives have helped to make Compass’s business model more attractive to other accounts, both helping stimulate business on a larger scale and decreasing costs of operation.

Did you know we

COMPOST

Our initiatives began at Sargent Dining Commons, the largest on campus. Sargent serves between 15,000 and 19,000 meals a week to students, faculty, and staff. In order to make sure all operations run smoothly, our team consists of nearly 100 employees (most of them full time), an executive director, chef, a front of house manager, as well as two full-time sous chefs on site. Before Compass took over, there was little attention paid to what happened with the waste generated from this massive operation. Northwestern had only a limited number of containers to store compostable materials and did not have the specific type of bags necessary for third party collection of this waste.

Implementation The waste reduction and composting program takes a 3-step approach with the goal of creating a composting program which would achieve 95% or more of food waste diversion with less than 1% contamination in one year. The three steps are below 1. Back of house composting 2. Elimination of the opportunity to create waste 3. Increasing awareness Each step would be its own program that would work alongside the others to support them.

Implementation of

Composting STEP 1: Back of house program: This step was the beginning of the overall program and therefore had the most initial attention. The program began with a waste audit performed by Eatable in November 2018. This gave the best picture of what was happening already and where the largest opportunities for improvement were.

STEP 2: Efforts to eliminate the opportunity to create waste are ongoing. This is mainly driven by changes in ordering, the chef’s motivation to help their staff, and a commitment to reduce student waste. Some of the steps we have taken are to switch to bulk ordering and bulk dispensers for students. For example, we now have bulk containers for sugar, hot chocolate, creamers, jams, and more.

STEP 3: increased awareness would focus on students and engaging them to think about their involvement in waste diversion. This would begin after the BOH composting program was implemented and a routine for staff. Based off the results of the Waste Audit in November 2018, the largest opportunity for improvement was plate waste. It was decided to focus on the plate waste for step 3 of the process.

Guest Facing Compsting To start the program, the Sustainability Director visited each pre-shift for a week to do a quick ten minute training on composting.

The trainings would start by relating the initiative to reducing food waste and explaining what composting was. This would simply be described as ONLY food waste going in the clear waste not containers. Any other objects would be considered contamination. Time for questions was always included, along with a request for suggestions on how to make the program successful.

A Waste Audit was completed by Eatable 2 weeks later, in November 2018, to evaluate the programs and to find the largest opportunities for improvement.

Once the waste audit results were evaluated, the composting program was adjusted to ensure success.

During December, in response to several compost dumps, the Sustainability Team would check the compost at Sargent every 40 minutes to check for contamination.

This was to see exactly where the confirmation was coming from and eliminate any confusion among the staff. The dining staff then had 40 minutes to clean the contamination from the exterior composting stations.

Implementation of

Composting Step by Step

STEP 1 IMPLEMENTATION: In the kitchens the composting program consisted of daily checks of each waste not bin by the managers, sous chefs, and sustainability team. This consisted of physically digging through the bins to see if there were any gloves or other forms of contamination in the bins then removing any contamination found. For each bin that was found to have no contamination the station was rewarded with a “Platinum Buck” part of the employee rewards program for the account. At the beginning the managers were rewarding about 20 bins per day.

The act of digging through the bins, especially when the Executive Chef would do it was seen as humorous to the staff and helped to set an example.

As she said to her team “I don’t expect you to do anything that I wouldn’t” so she would expect her staff to also look in the bins and take out pieces of contamination wither or not they put it there. The example being set from the top and the stressing of the importance of team rewards were integral to the success of the program.

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WASTE AUDITS

STEP 2 IMPLEMENTATION: The transition to bulk items took place over several months as the chefs found the time to look for new bulk items to replace and bulk dispensers for the items.

The students did not notice the transition to bulk items.

STEP 3 IMPLEMENTATION: To increase awareness of the importance of reducing waste and composting to students we partnered with SustainNU to host the first Plate Waste Challenge on campus. The annual Green Cup is a challenge between residences on campus to see which residence can reduce its carbon footprint the most over one month. To partner with the Green Cup we incorporated the Plate Waste Challenge as one of the ways to win points. The challenge included a sign by the dish return stations, updated weekly, that told students of the total amount of plate waste composted over the past week, the plate waste per person, the number of meals that could have been served if the food had not been wasted, and the dining commons with the lowest per person rates.

During this month Sargent saw a 30% reduction in plate waste from the first

The largest challenge of t the sheer volume of wast from cooking from scratc kitchens everything, inclu cut by hand and can gene of waste. We started by p Waste Not bins on the co found the staff were still p into the green slim jims b placed the clear Waste N top of the green slim jims by a staff member. This w as it prevented waste from being tossed into the slim easy for the management was in the bins.

Difficulties Overall the program implementation is focused on the time required to get buy-in and create a habit. It takes several months to form a habit and create a routine. The composting program relies on breaking the habit of simply tossing something into a bin and creates one where the item is identified as compost or not then identifying the correct location for that item. It also requires individuals to form a habit of looking into the compost bins and pulling contamination out and correcting others who are containing bins. It took roughly three months for the program to become a routine with less and less management time involved in training.

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the program was te generated ch. In our uding fruits are erate some form placing the clear ounters then putting gloved below. We then Not bins into the s as suggested worked very well m accidently m jims. It also was t to see what

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Weighing in

Costs

The labor costs were greatly reduced as time went on based on the comfort level of the staff with the program. The initial costs were significant due to the waste audit and the purchasing of necessary equipment, however the start-up costs were one time only, no additional bins have been purchased. The only repeat cost is for the annual waste audits which are consistent each year.

To measure the success of our composting program we use two quantitative methods and several qualitative methods.

We started our program with a waste audit to create a baseline metric and to see where our greatest opportunities for improvement are. The waste audits are completed annually to reevaluate where we stand and update our goals.

Food Waste

Tracking We also implemented food waste tracking by prep station with the Compass Waste Not program at the beginning of the composting program. This allows us to check which stations are generating the most weight and see where we can reduce our waste. This also allows us to track our plate waste in the dish rooms.

We also do routine checks of the indoor composting slim jims during regular business. While walking through the kitchen spaces we pull out any contamination in the compost. Each station also checks and corrects their own compost bins to ensure no contamination is in their bins.

When coming or going through the dock managers routinely check the outdoor compost toters to ensure no waste from pedestrians has contaminated the compost.

In guaranteeing staff to compliance with new composting procedures, we realized the importance of open communication, and conveying the larger purpose of our actions. Rather than keeping employees in the dark, and asking them to blindly follow these new rules, we welcomed questions, feedback, and suggestions. This allowed the employees, who did the bulk of the work, to feel that they were truly a part of something bigger.

Beyond this, the importance of messaging became apparent. A large part of succeeding in making change, is understanding how to rally outside support and truly make people excited about the initiative.

GARFIELD PRODUCE PROVIDES OUR DINING COMMONS WITH FRESH MICRO-GREENS

In guaranteeing staff to compliance with new composting procedures, we realized the importance of open communication, and conveying the larger purpose of our actions. Rather than keeping employees in the dark, and asking them to blindly follow these new rules, we welcomed questions, feedback, and suggestions. This allowed the employees, who did the bulk of the work, to feel that they were truly a part of something bigger.

Beyond this, the importance of messaging became apparent. A large part of succeeding in making change, is understanding how to rally outside support and truly make people excited about the initiative.

We have found that the techniques used in our composting program are quite easy to implement and pose very few barriers. The trainings and everyday materials necessary are both simple and widely accessible. For example, the use of buckets inside of waste containers to encourage the correct sorting was a very low-cost method of teaching employees the proper technique. Further, beyond the initial cost of the waste audit to assess starting points, maintenance of the program is extremely simple.

The composting program was the first event in a series of reactions that have increasingly benefitted the productivity, attitude, and environmental impact of our dining operations. Within one year, we are already seeing returns on the monetary investments and effort that went into the composting program. Compass began at Northwestern seeing entire compost receptacles being dumped into the landfill due to contamination, and now, with only 5 pieces of contamination found in our last waste audit, our program essentially runs itself. The wild success of our program shocked everyone involved, even those responsible for its creation. Compass is now able to order less food rally the support of staff with ease and share our interests with the environmentally conscious student body at Northwestern, who will be increasingly involved in furthering the expansion of sustainable best practices on campus.

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