VCU news

By Amelia Heymann

“A city within a city” – that’s how Stephen Barr refers to Virginia Commonwealth University’s large footprint within Richmond. Feeding the VCU community – tens of thousands strong – comes with many logistical challenges, including how to reduce the university’s environmental impact.

In Virginia’s capital city, “as an anchor institution, as a large entity, we have a responsibility to pave the way in showing others how it’s possible,” said Barr, Ed.D., director of VCU Business Services, which includes dining operations.

With an intensified focus on sustainability, Dining Services already has installed LED lightbulbs in dining halls, added recycling bins and switched from plastic to compostable single-use items. Barr said VCU is now focusing on an even bigger target: reducing how much waste it sends to the dump.

In 2024, the university launched its One VCU Sustainability Plan, a first-of-its-kind initiative on campus, which is designed to embed sustainability throughout the academic and health system realms. Sara Barton, associate director of sustainability initiatives and outreach, said one of the goals is for VCU to become a zero-waste campus. 

“It means thinking about our waste impact really holistically at a large, complex institution like VCU,” she said.

Finding uses for unused food

Dining Services’ first points of review included its processes for composting and for redistribution of unserved food. Barr said significant waste was leaving the campus without having served a fuller purpose.

A new composting plan was implemented this past October, with the front-end simplicity of offering composting bins for food scraps instead of traditional trash receptacles.

Market 810, also known as Shafer Court Dining Center, and Laurel & Grace Place are the initial participants in the composting program. Barr noted that before expanding to other dining locations, VCU wanted to focus on sites with enough pre-consumer food waste to fill a composting bin. The university is looking at placing bins at strategic locations, where multiple dining entities can contribute to them.

Aramark, which has been VCU’s main dining vendor for more than 30 years, is an important partner in the sustainability efforts. Bryan Kelly, the resident district manager for Aramark, said that since the implementation of composting, he has noticed a visible decline in the amount of waste being collected for trash compactors.Another way VCU is reducing food waste is by donating unused portions and ingredients to local food banks and pantries. Aramark uses an app called Goodr, which is like an Uber Eats for food donations. Aramark simply enters how much of a product is available for pickup, and a driver will collect it and deliver it to a food pantry.

“It’s intuitive technology that helps us get the food from our facility to someone in need,” Kelly said.

On another front, prepared meals that haven’t been consumed are being distributed to the new Ram Fridges, which serve food-insecure students on campus. Kelly said about five to 10 to-go containers are sent to a fridge every few days. 

“The work that the VCU Dining and Business Services are doing to make progress toward reducing our food waste is really an important step as we work toward becoming a zero-waste campus.”

Sara Barton, associate director of sustainability initiatives and outreach

A measured approach

There are longer-term goals as well, including using new forms of data to understand the inputs and outputs at dining locations. This even includes determining if there are preferences for certain types of food, which could yield less waste.

Sustainability leaders have partnered with John Jones, Ph.D., an assistant professor with the Center for Environmental Studies in VCU Life Sciences. He applied for a Sustainable Agriculture and Research Education grant through the USDA to measure how much food is being left on plates at Shafer. This is the same grant that is helping fund the Ram Fridges program.

Jones, initially unsure of how to measure post-consumer food waste, conferred with Tamer Nadeem, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Engineering, who proposed assessing plates at various intervals. Jones said this study is important because while Aramark could track food use and waste on the front end, there was no mechanism for tracking post-consumer waste.

Nadeem and one of his students are developing a system that will take pictures of plates – before they are cleaned – to measure how much food is being consumed and, in turn, disposed of. A device will weigh the plate, and a scanner will take pictures of it after the meal to analyze how much food, and what kinds, are left over.

They have started testing the durability of scanners in Shafer and hope to have a prototype to test over the summer, with implementation of a beta program targeted for fall of this year.

Barr offered an example of how this study could help reduce food waste: If dining officials notice an increase in green beans being disposed of, they might review how they are preparing the vegetable, its frequency on the menu, the portion size – and even if other vegetables would prove more popular.

“And now we’re going to be getting that information, that data, and we can make some better-informed decisions on what type of recipes and what type of [ingredients] we can bring,” he said.

‘Engineering for humanity’

Jones added that such information can also save the university money. If Aramark is ultimately ordering and cooking more efficiently, that meshes with the One VCU Sustainability Plan goal of reducing waste.

“The project is really aligned with engineering for humanity, because it’s serving both people and the planet,” Nadeem said, noting that it might encourage students “to change their behavior in a healthier and more mindful way—not to waste so much food. That’s the kind of positive change engineering can help bring about.”

Dining Services is also looking to phase out more single-use utensils. Compostable utensils, though better than plastic, can still end up in a landfill if composting services are not available. Barr said the material doesn’t simply break down when in a landfill because it needs to be exposed to oxygen through the composting process.

Barton said VCU’s sustainability goals include reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Landfill waste creates methane, so better resource management can reduce VCU’s carbon footprint.

Dining Services is testing reusable to-go containers at Shafer. Each plastic clamshell will have an RFID tag to help track its lifespan, and the container system ultimately could expand to other locations.

Together, Barton said, “the work that VCU Dining and Business Services are doing to make progress toward reducing our food waste is really an important step as we work toward becoming a zero-waste campus.”