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The case of the vanishing cafeteria tray
- dijonman2 4y agoWhat the article misses is what replaces dining trays. You still have plates, right? Or is it shifting to single use containers?
- foobarian 4y agoHopefully not plastic/styro plates.
- jaywalk 4y agoI had the same thought. I think they just make the students carry the plates without a tray?
- bombcar 4y agoExactly, and they buried at the bottom: > A 2015 study found that trayless dining decreased the percentage of diners who took salad by 65.2 percent but did not decrease the percentage who took dessert. Can students have their cake and eat it, too? Yes — just not off a tray. So food waste may be down, but I bet food waist is up! I think going back to the plate-trays as seen in the first picture might be more useful, defined sizes for various things, and no plates or bowls at all. Then you're just washing one item instead of multiple.
- fisxo 4y agoExactly. A few paragraphs in I started skimming for some mention of what they replaced trays with. There was nothing. When I went to university there were plastic plates, which amounts to the same thing as trays in regard to the cleaning that the article talks about. Are they using paper dishes? Having students supply their own?
- secabeen 4y agoNo no. The idea is that before, you had plates and bowls sitting on top of a tray. All had to be washed and disinfected. Now you don't have the tray, the students carry their plates in their hand directly. No tray to wash.
- chao- 4y agoOver a decade ago, during my final year there, my university removed their trays. I simply took one from the servery prior to the date of their removal, and continued to bring it with me and happily use it for myself. I regularly had people ask where I had found the tray, presumably hoping that they had been brought back. I find it amusing that the article specifically mentions salad towards the end, as that was my reason for deciding to pilfer a tray. My regular meal was a small entree, a large plate of salad, and a drink. That is three items, but I only have two hands.
- bombcar 4y agoFor those in a similar situation, you can get a tray from Amazon or a local restaurant supply for real cheap.
- themodelplumber 4y agoTIL I need a tray. God, imagine the stress-free life. I'm curious, is your tray branded? I remember my university had their mascot & logo on the tray.
- teachrdan 4y agoTrays were a staple of spontaneous sledding at my university.
- sharkweek 4y agoVivid memory using one as a shield in a dorm floor nerf war.
- clairity 4y agocornell was well known for this, given the combination of lots of snow and a big hillside.
- Ichthypresbyter 4y agoThere was one time when they were explicitly allowed to be used as paddles during the Cardboard Boat Race (otherwise the boat, including its means of propulsion, had to be made entirely from cardboard, PVA glue and duct tape). Then they changed the rules to allow any safe means of propulsion ("safe" essentially meaning "not an outboard motor, you idiots, there will be people in the water"). Canoe paddles were the most common, but I also saw pedal power, paddle wheels powered by electric drills geared down through a bicycle transmission, and one boat towed by a scuba diver at the bottom of the river...
- hirundo 4y agoI don't quite get the logistics. The photo in the article is of the kind of trays that substitute for a plate, with compartments for different foods. I haven't been to that kind of cafeteria in many years. But the buffet restaurants I do visit serve on plates, and provide trays to carry the plates. If you have a main dish, a salad, a dessert and a drink, but no tray, that's multiple trips to the table. So trays don't feel very optional to me. What am I missing? Are people not minding multiple trips, doing fancy balancing acts on the way back to the table, or combining everything on a plate?
- cmbuck 4y agoIn the eyes of the decision makers, the loss of functionality you describe is a feature, not a bug. Making it harder for you to procure food "reduces waste". It is the same line of thinking in which companies slash their call center staffing, add a recorded message about "unprecedented call volume", and then happily exclaim that since users have to sit on hold for hours, phone contacts have significantly decreased, thus "reducing waste" from an operational perspective.
- true_religion 4y agoYeah, basically food wastage is reduced by people taking less food in order to fit it on one plate. That could be less portion size, or simply by skipping dessert.
- Tyr42 4y ago> A 2015 study found that trayless dining decreased the percentage of diners who took salad by 65.2 percent but did not decrease the percentage who took dessert. Can students have their cake and eat it, too? Yes — just not off a tray. So maybe skipping salad instead.
- happyopossum 4y agoThere are multiple photos of trays in the article, and it's pretty clear form context that they're referring to the trays that hold plates, not substitute for them. I'd imagine the top photo was chosen for it's color and whimsy.
- gkop 4y agoPoorly researched. Usually the vanished trays appear again on their own, after the snow has melted.
- colpabar 4y agoHa. This is actually exactly what happened at my university. Everyone used to use them as sleds when it would snow, and then the university got rid of them. In retrospect it seems pretty ridiculous - any claim of "money lost" should be rebutted with the cost of tuition that increases every single year.
- Ekaros 4y agoNow I wonder about combating this type of theft? Is there any dishwasher anti-theft stickers? Just slap one on each tray and even a plate and then install needed gates at doorways... Seems relatively simple and commodity solution.
- vorpalhex 4y agoTrays are a couple dollars.
- gkop 4y agoYep, but they're easily available from the cafeteria right when the blizzard hits. Right when other sledding equipment is likely to be sold out from stores (stores that don't sell commercial-grade trays, at any price..). Plastic sleds (especially the flexible rectangles with the single handle) are cheap in bulk - maybe stockpiling them on behalf of the would-be tray borrowers, could help?
- aendruk 4y agoIf you’re having trouble seeing the article content, this is the relevant issue: https://github.com/michalsnik/aos/issues/541 https://github.com/michalsnik/aos/issues/541
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Noumenon72 4y agoDid anyone study the time waste of having to go back to the line multiple times?
- p1mrx 4y agoWhy would they study something that makes the plan look bad?
- simonsarris 4y ago> At American University, which eliminated cafeteria trays, one study indicated the move would save 13 tons of food every semester The more interesting but unasked Q to me is, How much food would be saved if they just did away with the dining halls? People that pay for each component of each meal probably waste considerably less food than the pre-paid assembly line of junk.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bee_rider 4y agoDining halls are pretty convenient IMO. * It is more efficient -- no need to bill for every item, so just tap your RFID card on the way in. * It is usually billed in the general proximity of tuition, so if parents are paying they can be sure the money is spent on food rather than beer. * Students are in a weird spot, lots of stuff is being thrown at them (studying of course, and might be away from home for the first time). It is nice to take the financial concern out of the nutritional balance calculus. * If the admin is motivated, they can simplify the waste stream (it is centrally managed and lends itself to buffet style, so they can make sure everything that the students get is biodegradable -- the waste should just be compost). Plus is is a nice community space.
- stordoff 4y agoMy Cambridge (UK) college billed per item, and I not sure you lose all of those advantages. > It is more efficient -- no need to bill for every item, so just tap your RFID card on the way in. The items were just quickly added up by a person at the end of the line, then you'd scan your student barcode/tap an RFID card and be billed for that amount. This was never the bottleneck in getting served. > It is usually billed in the general proximity of tuition, so if parents are paying they can be sure the money is spent on food rather than beer. You were billed in arrears at the start of the next term, so it was clear the money was going to the college (you could also use your card in the college bar, but IIRC this was itemised differently so parents could check if they want). > It is nice to take the financial concern out of the nutritional balance calculus. Certainly nice, but removing trays may skew the balance in other ways (FTA "trayless dining decreased the percentage of diners who took salad by 65.2 percent but did not decrease the percentage who took dessert"). > they can make sure everything that the students get is biodegradable / Plus is is a nice community space. Most people ate in halls anyway (the accommodation only had very rudimentary cooking facilities), so the first is still doable and we gathered as a group to dine most evenings. You'd also meet other people who happened to go at the same time.
- throwaway742 4y agoWhen I was in school I know it was popular to steal the trays to "drift" with. I also see another commenter saying they would use them for sledding. I wonder how theft factored into their decision. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFcwYGVnxyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFcwYGVnxyY
- bee_rider 4y agoHow big of a deal is food waste environmentally? I would tend to assume that food waste should mostly be compost, as long as plastic wrappers and other non-biodegradable waste is kept out. Which, depending on how it is implemented, moving away from trays would seem to be a step backwards, to me.
- vnorilo 4y agoAccording to our world in data, it's 6% of carbon emissions, a significant chunk! https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/food-waste-emissions
- Karellen 4y agoRight, but the carbon in food comes from plants (or, comes from things that got their carbon from plants) which got their carbon out of the atmosphere from recent photosynthesis. It's carbon that's already part of the carbon cycle, which is a dynamic but overall steady-state system. Emitting carbon which recently came from the atmosphere back into the atmosphere is not a problem. Emitting carbon which has been safely stored in rocks for tens (or hundreds) of millions of years is the problem. That's the carbon that's caused the increase in CO2 from 280ppm 200 years ago, to 420ppm today, which is the driver of climate change. Nothing to do with food waste.
- vnorilo 4y agoIt is mostly the energy used to produce and transport the food and other required inputs (like fertilizer), not so much the gases it belches out in compost.
- bobthepanda 4y agoWe use a lot of petroleum to generate food; fertilizer, mechanized equipment, refrigerating & transporting said food, etc.
- Ekaros 4y ago
- bargle0 4y agoCafeteria trays disappeared from dining halls at my alma mater when they were pilfered and repurposed in to sleds for the 1996 blizzard.
- gnicholas 4y ago> A 2015 study found that trayless dining decreased the percentage of diners who took salad by 65.2 percent but did not decrease the percentage who took dessert. Seems like an important finding, and one that could cut against removing trays. Don't we want people to be eating salads?
- LarsAlereon 4y agoWe want people to eat salad instead of other food, not in addition to it.
- gnicholas 4y agoThere's no indication that they were doing this, unless I missed something.
- moralestapia 4y agoNo. Salad + dessert is better than just dessert.
- april_22 4y agoSince the carbon footprint of meat is so high, some university cafeterias in Germany basically completely banned meat from their menus, which - I think - is a pretty smart step towards reducing emissions and becoming more sustainable. https://you.com/search?q=Berlin+Drops+96+Percent+Of+Meat+From+University+Menus https://you.com/search?q=Berlin+Drops+96+Percent+Of+Meat+Fro...
- taylorius 4y agoEvery person is just a mouse in a maze these days - we're all subject to a constant barrage of subliminal A/B testing to "nudge" us in whatever direction some technocrat has decided this week. I suppose being left to our own devices is out of the question?
- vorpalhex 4y agoWe lost the concept of individual agency. I blame attempts at scaling too much.
- DoneWithAllThat 4y agoYou’re right about how ubiquitous it is and it’s awful. It’s like collectively we’ve decided that the best way to get people to do what we want isn’t to try to convince them of our idea’s benefits, but to make their lives unpleasant and/or inconvenient if they don’t adopt it. It’s infuriating.
- ok_dad 4y agoWhy try to convince people to do the right thing when you can manipulate them into doing it.
- gedy 4y agoI wonder sometimes if people having smaller families, delaying children, and spending more time away from home is then projecting some people's nannying instincts and hand-wringing about behavior that used to be focused inside a family upon everyone else.
- savanaly 4y agoThey were providing you the trays outright before-- was that being left to your own devices? Seems the more natural and primitive state is letting you get your food and if you see fit to obtain a tray to eat it with well no one's stopping you.
- wolpoli 4y agoThese behavioral nudges are desirable for decision makers because they can push people into behaving a certain way without needing to explicitly write down or put up posters about them. In other words, doing things this way has a much lower change of the public pushing back.
- saagarjha 4y agoAs someone who grew up in a pretty strict “no food waste” household I can say that juggling around four plates just because the college thought I was going to dump most of it in the trash sucked. Hearing someone dropping a plate was at least a weekly occurrence in the dining halls.
- tomcam 4y agoI read the article and all of the comments on this page and I am still left baffled. I went to a commuter college for a little bit but I couldn’t afford to buy food. I don’t understand this experience very well other than visiting hospitals and eating in the cafeteria while I waited for someone. * Do they still use those heavy institutional plates for the food, or do they now use recyclable paper or what? * It seems like trays would reduce the number of dishes broken, assuming breakable dishes are used these days. * Is the food normally packaged when you buy it or is there still a concept of having them slop variable amounts oatmeal or fruit salad or or casserole or whatever into your bowl? * I imagine if I were a student I would actually like trays, because they seem like a much more efficient way to get the meal started. Also kind of comforting maybe. It appears that the universe of these just stopped using them because it is probably much more convenient and cheaper. Or am I hopelessly out of date and unaware that there is some kind of severe disadvantage imposed by trays?
- aaron695 4y ago
- ghusbands 4y agoThis is a significant accessibility and inclusive design issue - carrying multiple untippable objects is a little tricky for the median person, but is near-impossible for someone who is using a guide dog or cane, someone who is carrying a child in one arm or someone with a shoulder spica cast. The people who suffer from these policies will rarely speak up or request a tray because having to continually ask and wait for these accommodations is painful, as is the fact it makes you stand out more.