Some students may think the long line for made-to-order pasta at Ferris Booth Commons is unsupportable, but according to Dining it is the most sustainable dining hall.
Approximately 70 pounds of food per meal are wasted in Ferris, compared to 140 pounds in John Jay, according to Director of Dining Services Vicki Dunn.
“In Ferris, you’re not producing it all and hoping kids show up,” she said, explaining that in John Jay, where food is served buffet-style, more is wasted.
This week, the Columbia College Council and Engineering Student Council are surveying students about which dining hall the would prefer to see open on weekends: Ferris or John Jay. Currently, Ferris is the only dining hall that accepts the meal plan open on weekends, but students have complained of its limited space capacity and sometimes hour-long lines, according to CCSC president Learned Foote, CC ’11.
While a vote for John Jay might mean shorter wait times, Zak Accuardi, CC ‘11 and a member of the Green Umbrella said Ferris might be the environmentalist’s choice.
Currently Ferris does not have a dishwasher, so diners use paper plates and plastic utensils, whereas the dishwasher in John Jay uses about 16,000 gallons of water per day, according to Director of Communications Heather Tsonopoulos.
When Ferris was converted to a meal plan-accepting dining hall this year, Dining worked with EcoReps to get the “greenest, most compostable items,” Dunn said. “Everything there has been blessed by the Biodegradable Products Institute, so we got bowls made of starch and compostable plates.”
Hard china, vis-à-vis recyclable dishware and cutlery, can also be problematic for Dining because of students who steal cups for themselves or take their meals outside and don’t bring their plates back in. “Every year, I probably pull maybe 20 percent of our hard china out of the garbage outside or from benches,” Dunn said. “People don’t bother bringing it back in.”
Foote said that comparing the two halls’ sustainability outputs is “not something we [CCSC] have looked at specifically.” Instead, the flash polls the council has conducted so far have focused more on food preference, space to sit down, and wait time in lines. Members of the class of 2014, for whom a meal plan is mandatory, have voted “overwhelming in favor of John Jay.”
But Ferris is able to open at 8 a.m.—a time Foote said he feels is much more appropriate than John Jay’s opening time of 10 a.m.—and “if Ferris is indeed more sustainable, that would be another reason in favor of keeping it open,” Foote said.
Dunn and Tsonopoulos said that Dining works hard to be environmentally friendly—using locally grown produce and making its own jam and salsa—but that there are physical barriers. “At Ferris, the limitations are space and no dishwasher. At John Jay, it’s heat and air conditioning and power. Both dining halls try to be as sustainable as they can,” Tsonopoulos said.
She added that Dining is in the process of researching a new dishwasher for John Jay next year that is 30 to 40 percent more energy efficient.
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