Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech Dining Services will continue providing reusable eco-friendly to-go food containers in Owens Dining Center this year, in an effort to reduce waste from Styrofoam containers.

Dining services began offering the containers during the 2010-11 academic year after the Green To-Go Pilot program was launched in April during Earth Week 2011.

The Green To-Go program — launched in response to student interest in eco-friendly alternatives to Styrofoam trays — explored potential initiatives to reduce the environmental impact from campus dining facilities.

“Students have been asking for an alternative to throw-away to-go containers for some time,” said Elena Dulys-Nusbaum, the dining services sustainability coordinator. “For a few years, dining services has been exploring different avenues to reduce the amount of waste created by the containers.”

But the diversity of dining centers on campus has made it difficult to implement the program everywhere. 

“It’s been a unique challenge,” Dulys-Nusbaum said. “No two dining centers have the same layout, the same special resources or the same number of seats.”Dining services considered different approaches for a product that would work in all dining centers, finally deciding on the food-safe reusable containers being sold through the Green To-Go program.

“What we’ve been trying to figure out is how to ‘do it right,’ as opposed to just to ‘looking good’ with an approach, while still making it work at as many venues as possible,” Dulys-Nusbaum said.

The containers will remain the same as last year during this year’s phase of the Green To-Go program, but dining sustainability interns will be conducting a focus group to gauge what students would most likely use.

Dulys-Nusbaum said the focus group should reveal flaws in the container’s design and help dining services decide how they will continue with a green to-go container program.

Students have spoken out about the impact of the disposable to-go containers and their thoughts on the Green To-Go initiative. 

“I think it’s a good idea because of the amount of Styrofoam that we use and the fact that we can’t recycle it anywhere relatively close,” said Kelly Aeschlimann, a sophomore political science major. “It’s really not good for the environment.”

Sophomore communication major Maggie McVicar questioned the practicality of reusable containers.

“I think it’s a really good idea because the Styrofoam containers are really bad for the environment,” McVicar said. “But at the same time, it’s a little impractical because if you live off campus, and you’re trying to study, you don’t really want to carry around a reusable box around all day.”

Dulys-Nusbaum said there are students who will want to use the program.

“The containers are a nice tool for students that do not want to create excess waste, yet need to take a meal outside of the dining centers on occasion,” Dulys-Nusbaum said.

She said she hopes the program will gain momentum.

“In order to conserve resources and become more sustainable as a society, we need to find ways to create less waste and send less waste to the landfill,” Dulys-Nusbaum said. “We’re not there yet with to-go waste, but we are taking steps to get there.”

McVicar also expressed confidence in Tech’s program.

“I think we are definitely moving forward and making a lot of progress,” McVicar said. “There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

A version of this article appeared in the Aug 24 issue of the Collegiate Times.