Sustainable Dining at Mason

Across All Campuses

We will minimize the use of foil condiment packets by using pumps for ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce mayonnaise at all units.

All of our fryer oil is now being professionally micro-filtered to reduce the amount of oil used, and when it becomes waste oil, it is removed from campus to be turned into biofuel.

The Bistro is now trayless

Increased the number and type of recycling bins in and around the JC food units.

Use only recycled ink cartridges, as they are available through our office supplies vendor in the 30 or so printers we use.

Aiming at 100% recycling of all cardboard, plastic, glass and metal that precipitate from food preparation at all of our units on the 3 campuses, and will look into the possibility of recycling vinyl gloves.

Use "office size" paper recycling receptacles to minimize paper going into the trash at the small office level.

Use only 100% post-consumer recycled paper for our office printers and copying.

Use only napkins made from 100% recycled material (post and pre-consumer blend) on three campuses, which are distributed through single-napkin dispensers designed to reduce napkin use.

As part of its commitment to increase the sustainability of its operations, food and facilities management company Sodexo announced recently that it will replace existing dishwashing products and systems in all its client sites in the United States with the new Ecolab Apex™ dishwashing system. Apex combines technology and products designed to save water and energy, minimize the impact of products on the environment, and has a built-in method of measuring results. Mason Dining completed the transition in June of 2008.

Designed and sold (at cost) a plastic hot-holding travel mug (2,725 to date), and offered an incentive discount for using our “Greening Mason” mug, for a net coffee paper/cardboard setup savings of 23,420 coffee sets to date.

Designed and sell a rigid plastic “Greening Mason” cold beverage bottle (386 to date) for a result of countless plastic water cups not used and 288 fountain drink setups not used.

We encourage the over 400 Sodexo team members to use reusable containers for hot and cold beverage consumption to cut down on paper and plastic waste.

Southside

The very intentional design features we have built into Southside will put George Mason “on the map” in the U.S for sustainable dining practices:

Recycling: Incorporate three color coded recycling bins in the kitchens for 1) glass, 2) cans and 3) plastic. In the loading dock there is a three compartment recycling container and a cardboard recycling dumpster.

Eco-Friendly Chemicals: We will be using every eco-friendly, “Green Certified” Eco Lab chemical that is currently available for both machine dishwashing and manual pot washing, floor cleaners and detergents.

Trayless Dining

In the summer of 2007, Mason’s President Alan Merten signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, In the spirit of this and our growing number of campus sustainability initiative, Mason Dining is going trayless in both all-you-care-to eat venues on the Fairfax Campus, the Bistro and Southside.

Trayless dining is one significant initiative that helps to minimize food waste as well as water and energy usage while creating a more sustainable food service operation.

Electricity, water and chemical usage are reduced because there are far fewer dishes and trays to wash. This effect alone can save thousands of gallons of water every day and generate hundreds of dollars in detergent and electricity savings.

Less detergents, solid waste and grease down the drain also improves our local community’s water supply. Food materials discharged to local waste water treatment plants contribute to increased levels of BOD (biological oxygen demand), COD (chemical oxygen demand), TSS (total suspended solids), and O/G (oil and grease). Also, food materials discarded into the solid waste stream contribute to odor and methane generation at disposal facilities and to increased BOD and COD levels in local landfills.

Trayless service also provides an overall positive impact on student health. It discourages overeating.

We expect to save at least 1,000 gallons of water a day given the expected number of meals to be served at Southside and the Bistro

Pulping/Composting: We have a pulping machine in the facility that will be used to pulp/shred all the food waste, which will then be picked up by a composting company to be recycled into natural fertilizer.

Eco-friendly/Biodegradable service ware: In Gold Rush we plan to use environmentally friendly and biodegradable take out service ware. These items will reduce our demand for plastics and petroleum products and will degrade in landfills. They are made from a variety of different products like sugar cane, corn and potato by-products.

Eco-friendly/Biodegradable Supplies: The only paper supplies in the dining area will be napkins and straws, the napkins are made from post-consumer recycled paper and the straws will be made of recyclable materials.