Behind-The-Scenes of Sustainability

East Campus Dining Hall (E-Hall)

James Madison Dining has a lot to boast about, each year for the past 12 years JMU Dining Services has been nationally ranked for great campus food by the Princeton Review. More recently, for the past 6 years JMU has been ranked in the top 5 for best campus food. And most recently JMU has earned the title of the second best university cooking out of 376 colleges and universities across the country. This decorated Dining Service includes 26 different locations with options for gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan and meat-eaters alike. JMU is also one of the most progressive green campuses in the country and JMU Dining Services need to keep up with this initiative.

On Friday I had the amazing opportunity to speak with JMU Dining Services' Sustainability Coordinator, Caroline Rust. Caroline spoke to me about the steps that JMU is taking to serve more local and sustainable foods and she took me on a tour of the newly built East Campus Dining Hall. East Campus Dining Hall, also known as E-Hall, is sustainability certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. Composting was introduced in E-Hall when it was opened in 2009. The program was so successful that this year JMU Dining decided to compost in their most popular dining facilities. Caroline explained that just two dining facilies, Top Dog and Dukes, produced 30 tons of compost in the month of September alone. She explained that the sorting is "all up to the students" and Dining Services make this easy for students by clearly labeling each bin as either "Landfill", "Recycling", or "Compost". Each have pictures of what can and cannot be put into that bin.

Caroline also took me on a behind-the-scenes tour of E-Hall and she explained the process of sorting food product from trash in the kitchens. This a designated "green" trash can which is specific for food scraps that can be composted. To reduce food waste Dining Services also freeze untouched food and later donate it to the local food bank. If the food cannot be donated the food is prepared for composting. The food scraps are sent through a machine similar to a paper shredder and it chops and dehydrates the food into a confetti-like material. The shredded and dehydrated food scraps then get compiled and sent into giant compost containers and once they fill they are picked up by Black Bear Composting. The process is shown in pictures below!

Black Bear is located in Crozet, Virginia and is an organic recycling composting company. Black Bear then sells its compost to local farms where it is used to produce the fruits and vegetables that feed us. It is quite the amazing cycle; our food scraps turn into soil with the help of worms and other organisms and that soil is used to produce more food in which we can do the same thing with. It is the ultimate form of recycling. JMU also promotes more composting by purchasing compostable forks, knives, spoons, napkins, cups, lids and containers!

JMU Dining Services also takes part in recycling their used cooking oil. With the fluctuating price of gas many farmers have decided to switch over to bio-fuel to fuel their equipment because it sells at a consistent price. In order to make bio-fuel one needs vegetable oil, sodium hydroxide, and methanol. With vegetable oil being the largest percentage of the ingredients, many bio-fuel producers look to local restaurants to provide used cooking oil. JMU does just that, in the tank pictured below cooking oil is stored and picked up and treated by Greenlight Biofuels of Charlottesville, VA to become bio-fuel. Virtually everything used in the kitchen can be recycled and used to bring food back to our plates.

JMU Dining Services Sustainability department is also looking to expand its purchase of local ingredients to be served in its dining halls. Currently, much of the salad bar is supplied from local farmers as well as the apples, since they are in season. Caroline is working on increasing the percentage of food that is purchased locally but as she says, many students do not understand that switching to local foods means that they wouldn't be able to eat pineapple or avocado in the dining halls as they are imported from foreign countries. It is a work in process but I applaud the Sustainability department on the actions they are currently taking and for spreading the message of sustainable and local eating by bringing a farmer's market to campus and having a farm-to-fork dinner.

I had a blast learning more about where my food comes from and understanding the process of where my food goes once I throw it out! I'd like to thank Caroline Rust and JMU Dining Services for their cooperation and helpfulness in the creation of this post!  Look out for an upcoming blog post about Sunday's Crop Mob to Project Grows farm, a community farm that's goal is to increase awareness and education on healthy living through hands-on experience. 

~Ryan

"The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth" - Frances Moore Lappe