Mason Goes Green: GMU Strives to Reduce Waste

By Broadside Staff Writer Jared Trice

With its newly opened Southside dining facility, George Mason University has shown significant concern towards efforts to embrace the environmentally-friendly movement.

Opened on October 6, the Southside dining facility replaced Ciao Hall as the main dining facility on campus. According to Michael Galvin, the marketing and community affairs manager for Dining Services, Southside boasts an impressive menu of recipes that are “delectable and high quality.”

This new dining facility makes campus dining a more pleasurable experience and at the same time, Southside will aide in Mason’s efforts to reduce its impact on the environment. As a result, Southside has introduced a new practice: it has eliminated dining trays.

As an “all you can eat facility,” this elimination prevents students from overloading their trays with more food than they can consume. Experts agree that the absence of trays will reduce food consumption and will eliminate an estimated 30 percent of excess food.
Not only will the elimination of excess food university save money, but it is expected to save the facility thousands of gallons of water every day.

The Southside dining facility also plans to implement a pulper, a composting machine and eco-friendly chemicals. When available, the facility also plans to purchase goods from local vendors.

Mason’s concern with the environment has also been taken to the classroom. The education departments have begun to incorporate environmental awareness into the student curriculum.

These courses began popping up within the university’s catalog in the spring 2008 semester, reflecting a growing trend within universities to bring the green movement into the classroom.

Andrew Wingfield, an assistant professor at Mason and a supporter of this university movement states, “I think what it all leads towards is a shift in perspective that will ultimately become a culture shift.”

The year 2008 also provided colleges with an additional ranking system—a “green” report card. Earlier this year, The Princeton Review released the nation’s top green universities. Topping the list is the Georgia Institute of Technology, followed by Emory University and Harvard College.

Receiving the highest green score is no modest task. Georgia Tech not only offers students over 100 courses in sustainability, but also has 21 endowed chairs and 23 research centers that include significant sustainability components.

This focus on environmentally-friendly initiatives reflects a growing national trend throughout many university systems. Within the past year, some 586 campuses made a pledge to reduce their greenhouse-gas impact.

To their surprise, many of the universities are realizing this can be difficult to accomplish. In order for campuses to achieve zero impact, it is necessary to understand the causes.
These causes often involve the analyzing of tedious data that then leads to the necessary campus reform. Sept. 15, 2008 marked the date for the first deadline submissions for the zero-impact achievement. From the original pledged campuses, only 190 have been submitted with another 90 schools requesting extensions.

Mason’s efforts are not going unnoticed. Many students have seen the recycling bins placed throughout the university’s facilities or even the “conserve energy, turn lights off” signs within the university’s stairwells.

Although Mason did not make the list of the 11 universities that received the highest green rankings, its proactive initiatives and reforms certainly place the university on the right path.