Penn State University : Sustainability Tracking, Assessment And Rating System

While everyone may love to go out and enjoy a fine meal with friends and family, most will never stop to think the process of how the food came about, or the production thereof. John Oliver’s piece on “Food Waste” outlines all the problems of food waste and how they can impact society, animals, nature, and even the farmers who harvest the produce. America and its businesses should try to decrease the amount of food being wasted. By doing so, not only are we a contributing factor to help reduce waste, save time and money, but we are also aiding the less-fortunate in a society, while still saving natural resources and the planet as a whole.

Food waste is an environmental, economic, and ethical problem that can lead to less calorie intake and unnecessary damage of our assets. Individual behavior can redesign food waste at home and lead to bigger changes in the ecosystem. The problem is Americans throw out more food than glass, paper, and plastic. Also about 25% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane— a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

Serving as the number one source of our plastic use, companies opt for plastic containers because it's easy, feasible, and convenient. Food packaging alone makes up for 30-40% of landfills with much of that plastic being carried into the oceans. Going off of this, a new concept that's quickly becoming popular are package free grocery stores. These cost- effective grocery stores have everything you could possible need in bulk form and consumers bring glass or reusable containers, or cloth bags and fill them with the food they need. First popping up in cities like Berlin, Vienna, and Barcelona, many are finding this a more sustainable and eco-friendly option resulting in these sort of grocery stores quickly spreading across the ocean, with the first one in the United States expected to open in Brooklyn, New York. Business operators are extremely optimistic that this could serve a very impactful solution to getting rid of unnecessary plastic. (Che Jenny).

Looking around Columbia State Community College with the stunning zinnia gardens throughout the grounds, with ample land space and seeing recycling bins placed around the campus, and non smoking signs on the doors, CSCC is on the right path toward being a green campus; we can do more with a starting a community college garden. Imagine a community garden at CSCC where the students, faculty and the community show off with pride, not only because of its beauty, but because it enables a new set of learning experiences for students and our neighbors. CSCC should be willing to fight for a healthier campus. With CSCC deciding to make a conscious effort to encourage, a healthier way of eating by having a community college garden that will encourage students to make the right food choice.

INTRODUCTION: The act of recycling has been and is very influential around the world for the last decade, where global warming is not easily seen on news headline; strongly encouraged for all people, especially strongly advised to recycle in the United States. Recycling plastic and other reusable materials are a process that takes decades to have at least half of the world's population to get involved; however Nevada started to show advances to recycling, with investments from industries, universities or schools, and individuals. Hotels on the Las Vegas Strip and diverse population of students have promoted recycling exceedingly, which encouraged and still is encouraging out-of-state recycling industries to take a step further in recycling

Studies show that education, training, and incentives are causing university students to become more concerned with their environment and the environment of the next generation (Levy and Dilwali, 2000). Providing the opportunity to live in a sustainably built environment has become an important differentiating factor among universities around the world and is becoming increasingly important to students in terms of both how they adopt sustainable practices and their choice of a university. The majority of students and their parents are making acceptance decisions based on a university’s environmental commitment (Princeton Review, 2012). If the University of Central Arkansas would raise the facility fee, then the higher percentage rates

Grinnell College students, faculty, and staff have, for years, tried to make Grinnell College and its community more sustainable. Whether it has been through sourcing food grown locally and without fossil-fuel based fertilizers, advocating for LEED-certified buildings that conserve energy and water, or altering the College’s energy profile through the implementation of large-scale wind turbines, the College has focused on reducing harmful emissions while preserving standard of living (BMUB 2014).

Food waste is an issue that is present at Cornell College. By going into Bon Appetit, the issue becomes clear. Students are given more food than they can eat. To go boxes are not available for students who dine in, and most students do not bring reusable containers with them. Most do not think about how much food they waste. By going over to where we put out plates when we are finished, it is easy to see many students leave a good portion of their meals on the plate. Whether they did not like what they were eating or they were in a hurry and had to leave, big amounts of food are wasted during each meal of the day. Steps can be taken to decrease the overall amount of food that is wasted on campus. Ideas such as smaller plates, vermiculture, competitions, and others can be utilized in the efforts to decrease food waste on campus.

Background: Trash continues to increase, as the world continues to last. Easy disposable products such as water bottles and soda cans has led to increasing amount of pollution around the world.

Food is simply too good to waste. And while the loss of some food is inevitable, the amount of food Americans waste everyday has reached an all time high, and still continues to grow. The process by which food is produced uses 10% of the national energy budget, 50% of U.S. land, and 80% of the freshwater in the United States. (Gunders, 2012). Yet, 40% or 133 billion pounds of the food grown in this country goes to waste every year (Buzby, 2014). Reducing food losses by just 15% would be enough to feed more than 25 million Americans every year, when one in six Americans lack a secure supply of food to their tables (Gunders, 2012). Schools are one of the largest contributors to plate waste. A study by Richard Cohen reveals that plate waste accounts

The United States produces roughly 250 million tons of solid waste, or garbage, on an annual basis. This number equates to 4.4 pounds of solid waste created by every American on a daily basis (Miller, Meindl, & Caradine, 2016). The recycling rate in the U.S. is around 35%, meaning over 165 million tons of waste is placed in the nation’s landfills or incinerated each year (Mozo-Reyes, Jambeck, Reeves, & Johnsen, 2015). Landfilling recyclables contributes to a greater strain on global resources because materials that may have been reused must now be replaced (Miller, et.al. 2016). Landfilling waste also contributes to air pollution through the release of methane (Delkash, Zhou, and Singh, 2016) and poses threats to groundwater near landfills (Talalaj & Biedka, 2016). As the population of the nation (and the world) increases, strategies must be found to reuse resources rather than simply disposing of them.

Background: Trash continues to increase, as the world continues to last. Easy disposable products such as water bottles and soda cans has led to increasing amount of pollution around the world.

As the United States deals with the overwhelming amounts of waste building up, Nitin et al explain that “plastics take anywhere from 15 to 1000 years to biodegrade” once they are discarded (Nitin). Changes in recycling methods can no longer keep up with the exorbitant amount of waste produced in the United States. This is why some states choose to take their initiative one step further by placing either fees or a ban on the use of plastic bags. Due to the enormous waste the United States produces on a daily basis and the negative outcomes of this trash including adverse health effects, harmful impacts on nature, and the exponential piling of trash in landfills, the US government should ban plastic bags.

“Reduce, reuse, and recycle” is a motto that pioneered environmental programs in schools, and public announcements. This motto also holds true in the food service industry. Following the trend to “go green” means implementing this motto into restaurant operations. This includes procedural changes that aim to reduce the amount of resources used, attempting to reuse resources, and recycling those that cannot be reused. Restaurants can move toward more sustainable food service through the utilization of

Five hundred billion used globally and one hundred billion of them end up in U.S. landfills, taking about one thousand years to decompose, but only 5.2 percent were recycled (Borrud, 2007, p.75).-These are the figures plastic bags have produced every year. Human beings invented plastic bags for the convenience of carriers and packers. However, just as other great inventions, say, nuclear energy and biotechnology, plastic bags are causing serious issues like global warming, environment pollution and energy consumption. They are gradually becoming sword towards ourselves. In responding to this problem, the city of San Francisco has become the trail blazer to prohibit non-biodegradable plastic bags in its large supermarkets and pharmacies.