Stanford Dining Hall Redesign
Climate change and sustainability are foci of mine, and when COVID became our everyday reality, I observed that myself and others around me were producing much more waste than previously due to so many things now becoming single-use. On campus, this was especially magnified for the dining hall system. All food was (and still is) taken to go in plastic containers with disposable utensils. Not only is so much packaging thrown away, but food is too since the system promotes taking more food than one can eat. This motivated me to devise a better system, even if it will not be adopted.
Over the course of 10 weeks, I worked on a team with two other women prototyping a new system. It consisted of two parts: an app and structural changes. The app would allow students to pre-plan their meals ahead of time from a variety of options; this would allow the dining halls to order the appropriate amount of ingredients, prevent students from taking too much food, and ensure they would enjoy their meal. In effect, this would projectively reduce waste on both the production and consumer ends. The structural changes concern the packaging waste. We wanted Stanford to invest in sustainability by packaging food in reusable containers, providing students with metal utensils and to-go bags to keep, and establishing stations to return containers to be thoroughly cleaned before being recirculated.
While our system hasn’t (yet) been adopted, it deepened my passion for sustainability and I am highly conscious about my own consumption!
Over the course of 10 weeks, I worked on a team with two other women prototyping a new system. It consisted of two parts: an app and structural changes. The app would allow students to pre-plan their meals ahead of time from a variety of options; this would allow the dining halls to order the appropriate amount of ingredients, prevent students from taking too much food, and ensure they would enjoy their meal. In effect, this would projectively reduce waste on both the production and consumer ends. The structural changes concern the packaging waste. We wanted Stanford to invest in sustainability by packaging food in reusable containers, providing students with metal utensils and to-go bags to keep, and establishing stations to return containers to be thoroughly cleaned before being recirculated.
While our system hasn’t (yet) been adopted, it deepened my passion for sustainability and I am highly conscious about my own consumption!
