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TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
Many types of waste start in the dining halls of Texas State, but thanks to waste diversion practices, those same items can become reused and even reinvested into the ground right on campus.
Chartwells, the university’s dining service, collaborates with Bobcat Blend and takes its own initiatives to increase sustainability practices at Texas State’s dining halls throughout the years. The dining management company is responsible for seeking ways to support a sustainable campus.
In 2009, Chartwells partnered with Bobcat Blend, a student organization on campus that conducts composting and research, servicing the Commons dining hall by picking up food waste for composting.
Prior to the partnership, the university was fined $60,000 in fees due to flushing food waste down the sewer, according to Tina Cade, founder of Bobcat Blend. Cade had a solution for the problem ––– composting.
After receiving research grant money in relation to composting, Cade had the ability to build a composting site and gather a team of students to service multiple locations on campus, including the dining halls.
The food waste from the kitchen and food cleared from the plates by consumers at the dining halls are sent through food grinders and picked up by Bobcat Blend throughout the week. So far this semester, the kitchen waste alone has summed up to 2,200 pounds, according to Chartwells Operations Director Jay Smith.
“Eventually all this waste does come back to campus, using it on the ground, landscaping and whatnot,” Chartwells Resident District Manager, Chin-Hong Chua said. “So, there are multiple things that we do in a way that support the campus’ effort in sustainability.”
Once the waste is picked up through designated bins supplied by Bobcat Blend, the student volunteers then take the organic waste to be hauled to the composting site about 10 miles away from campus.
“[Composting] it’s not a glorious job, but it is rewarding, and composting is just truly magical where it takes this material that’s kind of gross and makes it into something wonderful,” Cade said.
Texas State has also promoted sustainability through becoming the first Chartwells campus to partner with Restaurant Technologies, a company that provides an oil recycling service. Used cooking oil from the kitchens is picked up and eventually reused for things such as biofuel, according to Chua.
“All our building’s oil is pumped through the tank, from the fryer straight to the tank,” Chua said. [Restaurant Technologies] is a lot safer than [TXST staff] hauling the waste oil and trying to dump it into the collection bin in the loading dock.
Chartwells additionally implements recycling through the incorporation of a company named Ozzi that supplies reusable to-go boxes.
“[Ozzi] has helped us reduce the single use to go containers, estimating here across two years [it is] probably about 30,000 to go containers that we’ve eliminated the use for. That was a pretty big push,” Smith said.
These developments for sustainability within the dining halls are a result of collaboration between Chartwells and multiple departments on campus, the ability to add on to this list in the future relies on these relationships and ability for funding.
“It all comes hand-inhand with the Texas State sustainability department and Waste Department… and also, funding. It all comes down to if the waste management has sufficient funding to implement more things on campus,” Chua said.
For more information on Bobcat Blend, visit the website facilities.txst. edu/grounds/recycling/ eventsandprojects/bobcatblend. html.
