USM’s Dining Services organized a series of events to promote sustainability at USM as part of Earth Week, which kicked off on Monday.
Tyler Kidder, the sustainability coordinator for Dining Services, organized USM’s Earth Week activities which also celebrate the 40th anniversary of the international Earth Day on Thursday. “I hope that USM can get more involved with being green. It’s up to faculty, staff, administrators and students. There’s a lot of ways to personally impact the university community,” said Kidder.
Aramark employees brought 500 pounds of unused food to arrange on tables at the entrance to the Gorham dining hall to show the quantity of food USM students throw away each day in Gorham alone. Kidder said the upside to the wastefulness is that some of the food scraps go to a local pig farmer while the rest is composted and used for fertilizer on the Gorham campus.
Aramark will be presenting a display on Thursday introducing their local food providers. Over 50 percent of the food served in the dining halls will be from Maine. The USM dining halls will also be signing students up to take the Green Plate Pledge to reduce food waste.
The USM Bookstore and Dining Services also won’t offer plastic bags this week. Kidder said she hopes this will provide the motivation for USM to become a plastic bag-free campus because they contribute to contamination of the oceans. Throughout the week Coffee by Design is offering a sale where for the purchase a $4.29 coffee mug students receive one free refill and then receive discounted refill rate of $1.19 in the future. Aramark supports Kidder’s position as the USM Sustainability Coordinator for Dining Services. They built a green house in 2009 at the Brooks Student Center in Gorham to grow greens to supplement the salad bar as a demonstration project.
The USM campus is one of 25 nationwide where Aramark has started buying local food. Aramark purchased $450,000 of local food in 2009 and switched milk from Hood to Oakhurst earlier this year. Aramark partnered with Maine Standard Biofuel and now 100 percent of their used fryer oil is converted in bio-diesel. The Earth day events on Thursday will end with a local food dinner sponsored by Aramark featuring local seafood, specialty foods and vegetables.
USM Earth week events coming up:
Wednesday
· Tours of the Gorham green house will be offered at 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m.
· Planting and seed demonstration from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m at the Gorham Brooks Student Center.
Thursday
· Native Maine producers will be offering samples of their local foods on the Gorham campus from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
· USM Sustainability Coordinator Dudley Greeley will show a film on consumerism called “The Story of Stuff” at 11 a.m. at the Brooks Student Center.
· Dinner of local food in the Gorham dining hall from 4 to 7 p.m.
Friday
· Local food lunch from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Brooks Student Center Dining Hall.