Students who went to the cafeteria this Wednesday, Oct. 30, saw piles and piles of leftover food being gathered. Chapman’s Office of Sustainability hosted their Weigh the Waste event at the Randall Dining Commons. This is an event created to highlight the amount of food waste that occurs in Chapman’s dining hall, as an effort to reduce the amount of waste produced by students. 

Volunteers and employees collect all of the uneaten food off of students’ plates and place them upon a line of trays. After dividing the leftover food into carbs, veggies, proteins, soups, desserts and drinks, the office calculates the weight of the food waste and leaves out the trays all day for students to visually see the effects of their choices.  

“This event happens twice a semester, so that students get a good sense of the food that is being wasted at the dining hall and they make better choices in the future. It’s also for the dining hall so they make more informed decisions about how much to serve and put on a plate,” said Kelly Taylor, the office of sustainability outreach & engagement coordinator. “I think it goes toward the sustainable idea of reuse, reduce, recycle and the most important is reduce in order to prevent waste and to lead Chapman to have a more sustainable lifestyle.”

Taylor believes that awareness and outreach are incredibly important when increasing sustainable efforts and preventing waste. Getting the word out to students and teaching about more sustainable choices is part of the educational experience and making more well-rounded citizens. 

“I think it’s important that students can see that yes, we have unlimited food options, but that does not equate to unlimited choices. Your actions have consequences and a lot more food gets wasted than you might think,” said Gracie-Anne Fraunfelder, a senior business major.

Many people believe that the administration can reduce their portion sizes due to the pre-made plates that the cafeteria gives out to students. Moreover, there is a lot of rice waste as opposed to fries, because students are allowed to grab as much as they please. “Letting students choose how much they want is important,” Fraunfelder said. 

“As a freshman, seeing this event, it was interesting to see the privilege and access we have to food where a lot of other people don’t,” said Fraunfelder. 

“A lot of food is wasted every day. This event is nice because it shows students how much they waste. Chapman does need to be more aware of how much good food goes to the trash,” said William Shelton, a dishwasher employee in the cafeteria.

Abigail Halling, a junior sociology major, volunteered at the event and how visualizing the waste is important for understanding its importance. 

“I think we don’t always get the opportunity to visualize how much waste is being produced in a single lunch period, and it can be a powerful image that we can take into account when making choices about food and portion sizes. Seeing definitely helps at least myself make more conscious choices about what I'm putting on my plate,” Halling said. 

There have been many recommendations from the students and staff that reducing the portion size would be extremely beneficial in order to reduce the amount of waste.

“Continuing to make adjustments to serving sizes and looking at what food groups have the most waste can be useful when planning out meals. Also, implementing some sort of to-go or take-home leftover system would be great,” Halling said. 

The United States wastes more food than any other country in the world. As much as 60 million tons of food are wasted every year, which is around 50% of the country's food supply, according to Recycle Track Systems. 

On college campuses across the U.S. alone, there are about 22 million pounds of food wasted, according to Stone Pier Press.