Sodexho has introduced Trayless Dining to control water and electricity usage on campus. The effort has reduced food wastes by over 25 percent, stopped 555 pounds of waste from going to the landfill, and has saved 183 loads of trays from going through the dish washing-machine.
“Sodexhos across the country have been doing this in a bunch of places. We did it in a tie with Earth Day, in an attempt to see a big difference waste wise,” said Steve Kauf, General Manager of Sodexho at TAMUK.
The first four-day trial was from April 15 to April 18. These days’ trays were used and 2145 pounds of trash was accumulated. On the second four-day trial, from April 22 to April 25, the pounds of trash decreased to 1590 pounds when trays were not used.
“As far as we know, we are going to keep doing it. We have had a relatively good response, there have been some people who prefer trays, but in our discussion with the food committee, we will probably keep up the Trayless Dining in the up-coming semester.” said Kauf.
Because of the new Trayless Dining trend, Sodexho has hired more workers to help keep the Tejas Room clean..