Platters’ staff and management is looking to help save the environment while saving students money at the same time. Part of this initiative was a display made to help students realize how much food they wasted on a daily basis.

Photograph by Kate Olsen

The management placed a display near the tray return area inside Platters containing all of the discarded food that was considered edible. The average amount of food wasted was 350 pounds a day, Karen Bast, Dining Services administrator at Platters, said.

The display is part of a larger initiative of Platters and Dining Services going green.
“Glenview has been very concerned with going green,” Bast said. “It’s involved in almost every decision we make.”

One policy that Platters has been considering is making the dining trayless. This would mean that students would not have trays to put all of their food on, and would have to carry the plates up by hand. Bast said this would help students, especially new students, to be more consious about how much food they are taking when they eat.

“I was that way when I first came here too,” said Bast. “Sometimes your eyes are bigger than your stomach.”