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For your PlanetEco-Ware Program 
In an effort to reduce our to-go packaging and the excessive waste it produces, Dining Services, in partnership with the GreenHouse Group and students from the Honors College, officially launched the Eco-Ware reusable take-out container program at Brennan's and the University Marché on January 17, 2011.The program is set to continue and expand fall 2011 to the Waterman Café, Waterman Manor and The Atrium. Resident Dining generates the least packaging waste impact due to its washable dishware and utensils. However, there is a high demand for take-out on this campus. The Eco-Ware program is just one important step toward reducing the environmental impact of to-go dining. Take-out dining generates excessive waste. If you order two take-out meals per day each week during the academic year, you'll use at least 340 plates or to-go boxes. Add in utensils, cups, bottles, soup, salad and sandwich containers, multiply that by the thousands of customers we serve each day, and you can quickly see why this has become such an important initiative. Click on the links to learn more and how you can participate.
Campus Composting  University Dining Services (UDS), the University of Vermont and the Intervale Compost Project work together to reduce the amount of waste entering area landfills. Food scraps are collected from several campus dining locations each day, then transported to the Invervale Compost Facility for composting. The Invervale is located less than a mile from campus, thus establishing a waste-to-resource partnership with minimal transport distance. At the Intervale the food scraps are layered with other organic waste, the resulting compost is then sold to garden centers, farms, nurseries and landscapers. As a practice of completing the circle, UDS purchases produce grown using this same compost.
In collaboration with the UVM's EcoReps, Nutrition & Food Science (NFS) 250 — Foodservice Systems class, University Dining Services piloted a "Going Trayless Dining" week at Cook Commons Dining Hall. Trayfree dining a, zero waste initiative and a recent college dining trend, aims to reduce the amount of food waste as it encourages diners to take what they like and eat all they take, as well as reduces the amount of water and electricity used for washing trays. March 24th - 28th, 2008 the dining trays at Cook Commons were removed and replaced with signage informing our customers of the "Going Trayless Dining" event. The EcoReps and NFS 250 class conducted an audit of food waste during the event and compared it with the amount of food leftovers when trays were in use. The results indicated a 42% reduction of food waste when during the trayless days. As a result of this audit, all the resident dining locations: Cook Commons, Harris/Millis and Redstone Unlimited removed their trays for the start of the 2008/2009 academic year and have remained trayfree.
Our dining facilities produce approximately 150-200 gallons of used cooking oil each month. The used cooking oil, as of February 2011, is collected from our dining facilities by an independent local hauler. The used vegetable oil is pumped into tanks on their trucks, which run on SVO (straight veggie oil). The used cooking oil is then transported to the Smartfuel America facility in Seabrook, NH where it is filtered into a vegetable biofuel. The biofuel is then used in a boiler at FiberMark specialty paper manufacturer in Brattleboro, Vermont. FiberMark recently converted its boiler operation to run on 100% vegetable oil, one of the first in the paper industry to do so. The vegetable oil powers the company's paper machine turbine, dries the paper and provides heat for the entire plant. Where did the used cooking oil go before 2011? From 2005-2010, UVM Recycling arranged with Green Technologies LLC, a small scale biodiesel producer operated by a UVM chemistry professor and located in Winooski, Vermont. Unfortunately, Green Technologies closed in December 2010. Prior to that, the used cooking oil went to Baker Commodities Inc.
University Dining Services supports using environmentally friendly packaging and are working hard to limit excessive packaging as well as utilize compostable products wherever possible. Items available in the dining halls that are compostable include: napkins, hot/cold cups, paper plates, plastic cups/lids, to-go boxes and soup bowls/lids and other items as requested.
University Dining Services supports the use of reuseable mugs on campus. Customers who use reusable mugs will only pay $1.09 for any size refill on campus for coffee and fountain soda options as part of the One Less Cup discount campaign. Reusable mugs are available for purchase in all of our retail dining locations.
Environmental Awareness Policy Sodexo's Environmental Action Program is complex and multifaceted, offering solid information and tools to make our customers, clients, employees, and society at large aware of environmental problems and how they can help. This is a "living program" with an open-door policy: We will add to, amend, update and keep our programs current through publications, posters, newsletters and similar marketing and communication materials. Our program will be enhanced as new information is discovered and as we hear suggestions from our customers and clients. The following are key steps we follow to maximizing the impact we can make with our environmental programs at UVM:
 You can help us in our sustainability in a number of ways:
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Recycling 
