Emerson Diners Significantly Reduce Food Waste!


By Sustainability Coordinator Jacqui Moy 

On Wednesday, November 15th, Emerson’s Sustainability Fellows held the last Weigh the Waste event of the semester in the Dining Center. For more details on Weigh the Waste events this semester, check out our past blogs! 

We totalled 84.4lbs of waste for the night. Compared to October, that’s a whopping 39.1lb total decrease, decreased weight in every waste category, and a decrease in per capita waste, moving from 2.32oz per diner to 1.67oz! Here’s the breakdown by category of waste compared to September and October’s Weigh the Waste events: 

Bar chart of waste weights by category of waste for September, October, and November events. November's weights are the lowest in each category except for trash.

As usual, we surveyed diners by asking why they had leftovers on their plate. Out of 48 responses to our survey, 35.4% said they were served too much, 23.1% took too much, 12.5% didn’t like the food, another 12.5% said their waste was inedible, 12.6% ran out of time to eat, and 2.1% said their food was spoiled. Here’s a breakdown of the responses: 

Pie chart of survey responses where the most popular response was that diners were served too much.

We did an amazing job minimizing and correctly sorting our waste this month! We look forward to seeing you next semester for our monthly Weigh the Wastes! Until then, please refer to signage and shadow boxes in the Dining Center and around campus to correctly sort your waste. And don’t forget all the ways we can reduce and divert our waste over this holiday season!

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