Last week the Dana Hall Dining Center, with the help of Dana's Sustainability Committee, also known as the Green Team, experimented by going trayless.  The trayless experiment was initiated by students and faculty on the Sustainability Committee, which was created to consider environmental issues as they apply to decision-making at Dana Hall.

After community members completed their meals, they scraped their extra food into buckets for a week with trays, and then for a week without using a tray in order to accurately compare food waste.  By not using trays, Dana's food waste was reduced by 40%, and because there were fewer dishes to wash, about 1,000 gallons of water were saved in one week, which equals about 31,000 gallons per year.  A presentation showed at All-School Meeting let students and staff know that those 31,000 gallons of water is equal to about six showers a day.

Sustainability Committee Member and Assistant Librarian Sam Musher said that going trayless, "Has become a very common practice in colleges and universities, and they're seeing similar savings to what we saw."  In addition to the reduced waste and saved water, fewer dishwasher loads also meant big energy savings for Dana.  "We're all very excited to see how a simple change like this can have such huge effects," continued Musher.  The school has not decided to go permanently trayless yet.  Musher hopes the experiment, "...will encourage the whole community to think about how much their choices matter."

The Dana Hall Sustainability Committee is committed to including students, faculty, staff, and all other community members in an effort to implement programs that benefit the environment, improve operating efficiencies, and increase understanding of relevant issues.  During the 2008-09 school year, the committee is focused on four major areas: conducting an energy/waste audit; recycling; composting; and educating the community and increasing awareness of environmental issues.