ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES COMMITTEE
April 18, 2001
EMU Umpqua Room

ATTENDEES: Mary Clayton, J.R. Gaddis, Teresa Koberstein, Robyn Hathcock, Kay Coots, Bob Jones, Sean Henderson, Vera Kewene, Susie Shauger, Jane Steckbeck

UO Catering:

Jane Steckbeck presented her concerns and offered suggestions to improve sustainability and reduce waste in the UO Catering process. She provided the committee with a memo outlining her ideas and observations as follows.

Background: At catered law school events, entire boxes along with any remaining food, napkins and trash are routinely thrown in the garbage.

Primary Issues:

  1. How can UO Catering minimize waste in its box lunches?
  2. How can UO department heads be encouraged to order less heavily packaged options, and facilitate recycling the remaining unused food from box lunches?
  3. How can the Environmental Issues Committee help?

Jane opened a dialogue with Tom Driscoll in a meeting on April 12. She provided a copy of the follow-up e-mail to their discussion regarding: labeling boxes with "Please Recycle" and use of boxes made of recycled material; replace plastic cups with paper for trail mix; replace heavily dyed paper napkins with plain, unbleached off-white napkins.

The committee unanimously agreed to support this process. Mary will contact Tom to offer the committee’s assistance in researching policies at other campuses, composting and disposal options, and types of recycled products. Robyn has already met with Tom to work on some of these alternatives. Information, such as web sites, etc., may be sent to Linda at ljohnson@oregon.

According to J.R., Oregon State University was working on a similar process years ago. He offered to contact them for advice and any policies they may have in place. Vera also recommended additional sources – the Higher Education Network, University of Florida at Gainesville and University of Michigan. Josh Skov (Good Company) is another good local source for information. Ann Bettman could answer questions concerning composting at the urban farm and other locations.

If the committee decided to draft some recommendations this year, they would still be sent to Dan Williams. In the event that this became a long-term project into next year, we would report to the Senate, in addition to Dan Williams.

The next Environmental Issues Committee meeting will be held on Wednesday,

May 16 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. in the EMU Umpqua Room.