Has going trayless significantly reduced the amount of food wasted each day at Iowa State? Working as a student employee for ISU Dining at non-trayless and trayless facilities I’ve seen firsthand how much food students waste; and to be honest it’s surprising.

The main reason to be concerned about food waste is expense. It costs a lot of money to dispose of food when it is wasted. With the economy just recovering from its decline in recent years the last thing people want to be is wasteful. Yet students at times can be very wasteful.

Each day thousands of plates make their way down the belt lines across campus. Often these plates still have plenty of food on them. Some plates even have entire meals seemingly left untouched. Do students realize how much food they waste or is it just an afterthought? It’s hard to imagine there’s something wrong with the food, but it’s hard to say when most students leave their complaints to themselves.

If students could reduce the amount of food waste they produce the cost of meal plans could potentially decrease. Even though the savings might be small to a college student those savings can mean a lot. Especially with so many students paying most if not all of their way through college on their own.

So, then if it isn’t the food then what is it? Are students incapable of realizing how much food they can eat? It’s understandable if a student gets a little too much to eat, but to throw away an entire plate full of food is ridiculous. Perhaps students don’t realize they’re wasting large amounts of food when they can’t see how much is actually wasted.

Recently, ISU Dining has made efforts to reduce food waste by removing trays from several dining centers entirely. However, it still seems that students are wasting lots of food every meal. And even though ISU Dining claims that food waste is reduced by these methods it’s hard to believe. Just seeing the amounts of food coming along on the belt line can make you question the significance of these claims.

Sure food waste may be reduced slightly, but there still seems to be large quantities wasted. So, this begs the question, can food waste be reduced even further? I believe that yes it can. It’s up to Iowa State and ISU Dining to make further efforts toward educating students about food waste. It’s hard for students to realize how much food is wasted when they don’t see the waste directly themselves. If students could see the food wasted there’s a chance they would make some changes in their habits. Ultimately it is up to the students to make the major changes, but in order to make them they will need a little help.