The Hospitality Services at Rensselaer does our best to reduce our carbon footprint and stay green at all our resident dining halls. One big improvement we've committed to in the past few years is the initiative to maintain a "trayless" dining environment.
The larger impact of trayless dining comes from the reduction in food waste. A recent study from Aramark revealed a 25-30% decreases in food waste during trayless days at 25 different colleges and universities. Students have a tendency to pack on the food when they have a tray that can carry multiple plates. With the absence of trays, students are lead to make more careful plate choices and therefore waste less food during meals.
Trayless dining is a simple and easy solution to reduce waste and save money. Not only have we made an effort to be trayless in resident dining, but we've recently pushed the initiative to our retails locations as well. Just this past semester The McNeil Room has gone trayless. While the food waste might not have been the biggest concern in our retail location, the energy and water saved from cleaning the trays make an environmental impact. Trayless dining conserves energy by eliminating the need run those trays through the dishwasher anytime they are used by patrons.
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