music by juliush from pixabay

“initially, i reached out to katie mckenna in carleton’s dining service, bon appétit, like, i want to talk about reusable to-go containers and what they would look like in sayles café,” said farias, an environmental studies major who works both as a sustainability assistant in carleton’s sustainability office and with the food and environmental justice cohort in its center for community and civic engagement. “i’m still astounded by how far the program has come.”

farias has been involved in a number of sustainability and food projects on campus, including the swipe out hunger initiative, where students donate a meal swipe to benefit peers who experience food insecurity. as a member of the waste team in the sustainability office, reducing material waste in campus food services had long been one of his goals. he originally meant to run a pilot project in spring term 2020 with 100 students and 25 faculty and staff opting to use exclusively reusable containers in sayles café. then, the start of the covid-19 pandemic shut campus down, and plans were abandoned. but the carleton student association had already funded the purchase of 300 reusable clamshells, and there were 280 students still on campus. so farias and his team thought: why not try the project anyway? 

“a lot of students did not want to eat in the dining hall—they were scared,” said katie mckenna, the dining services manager with bon appétit. “they just wanted to take food out, and we were going through a lot of disposable clamshells every week. it was frightening, the number with only 280 students on campus.”

for the last week of spring term, a revised pilot program ran in sayles and one of carleton’s two dining halls. farias and sustainability program coordinator alex miller served as project managers, with mckenna running bon appétit’s end of the program. bon appétit student sustainability ambassadors karen chen ’21 and ella hein ’23 were brought on to represent a student perspective and market the project. chen took the lead on designing posters and a green2go exchange card.

on-campus students were each given a copy of the card, which they could trade out for an ozzi brand reusable clamshell at a meal. after eating, they were expected to rinse out their container and return it at their next meal, either for a card or another container. according to farias and mckenna, the program was informative and an overall success.

then the college decided to bring 1,500 students back to campus in september, and they realized that the time for a full-scale green2go program had come.

“when we were talking about this fall, my options were throwing all this money into one-use containers that were just going to fill the compost bins on campus, or trying to do this green2go rollout,” mckenna said. although compostable containers were already the default, they are still produced with disposable material and take a long time to biodegrade. 

“the other concern was there being a shortage,” farias added. “with so many other schools relying on these compostable containers, we wouldn’t have been able to supply any more of them. instead, we might have to turn to something like styrofoam, which in my opinion is my worst nightmare.”

so farias reached out to jesse cashman, the director of auxiliary services and client manager for carleton’s contract with bon appétit. cashman had dealt with the funding for the disposable containers during spring term; with about 2,100 meals per week at $0.26 per clamshell, they had been spending $546 every week. that would have gone up to 16,000 meals and $4,160 a week come fall term. comparatively, a green2go container that can be used upwards of 300 times is only $4.10—the equivalent cost of 16 disposable containers.

“when we looked at what the cost was to get the product in here, it was pretty easy to arrive at,” cashman said. “we’re going to return our cost here within 3-4 months of this operation, which is pretty astounding.” 

thanks to cashman’s advocacy, the college purchased 3,500 green2go containers in july, and 1,000 more in september, with money set aside for covid-19 expenses on campus. because it wasn’t just about sustainability; without a pandemic, carleton would never have needed this many to-go containers. it was about safety.

during new student week, all meals were packaged in disposable to-go containers. but starting on the first day of classes, with many students taking their food out in green2gos, bon appétit has been able to set up limited and distanced seating in the dining halls and cafés.

“because there are so few seats in the dining halls, because the occupancy limit is so low, having these green2gos really allows people to get out of the dining halls,” farias said. “i see them on carleton’s quad, the bald spot, i see them all around campus. it allows people to eat in a socially distant manner.” even as colder weather arrives and students eat outside less often, they can take their food back to their rooms rather than crowding the dining halls.

and so far, it’s working. mckenna was initially concerned about whether students would return the containers, given a poor track record for reusable programs in the past. “we tried it once before with the reusable cups,” she said. “students were taking soup in them and not washing them for days. they’d come back full of mold. they just didn’t care. we went through six thousand cups in the first three weeks of fall term, which is insane for a campus our size. they just weren’t returning them. but they’re returning these green2gos.”

hein had similar concerns at the end of spring term. she was worried that students wouldn’t understand how the program worked or would just hoard the containers in their room.

but being back on campus, hein has been pleasantly surprised. at the beginning of october, she conducted an inventory of the containers that showed the dining halls had the right number at meal times. sometimes, she said, she even feels like all of her friends have adjusted to the program more smoothly than she has.

she has a theory as to why. “i think everyone came in with an ability to adapt to all of the changes this fall,” she said. “if the green2go program had been the only thing that was changing, if it was a normal campus year, it might have gone worse. it’s a different system, but because there are so many new systems across campus, people were just aware that they had to adapt.”

mckenna summed it up. “in an odd way, i think covid-19 has helped this program with student awareness. i can talk about reducing waste all day long, but it really has to be something that the students buy into. they wanted to be able to eat out of the dining hall, and how could we do that successfully? the clamshells were the answer.”

now that bringing green2go containers back and forth from the dining halls has become the social norm, mckenna has high hopes for future sustainability projects. her ideas include reusable to-go silverware, small containers for sides at sayles, weitz, and schultze cafés, or a revamp of the reusable cup program. the rest of the team is right behind her. “i think this is a great example that with community participation, student participation, we can accomplish these sustainability efforts on campus,” cashman said. “so it just opens the door to make more improvements down the road in all of our other areas that we’re using disposables.”

there’s also the possibility for the green2go program to spread beyond the carleton bubble. some institutions, such as macalester college and bemidji state university, have their own reusable programs, and others are in the process of developing them for the covid-19 crisis. carleton’s unique success story can provide an example of how to do it well. farias is currently writing a case study about the project for the post landfill action network, a resource for colleges that are working to reduce their waste. chen has written about the program in the bon appétit magazine, bravo, and the two of them are also presenting to a cross-campus sustainability group of student environmental organization leaders. 

“i think we’re an example of an institution that is doing something right and is taking advantage of the special opportunity that the covid-19 situation has presented,” said chen. “our model could be used as an example for other institutions to follow in step, and that would be a really awesome way to expand our impact and promote sustainability outside of just this campus.”

meanwhile, the green2gos are getting an evaluation back on campus. in economics professor mark kanazawa’s environmental studies research methods class, one student research project is focused exclusively on the containers. karah haug ’21 and alle brown-law ’21 are conducting a survey of students, faculty, and staff about how the program has been going. they developed their questions, both about perceptions and usage of the green2gos, with help from miller and mckenna. in an instance of truly reciprocal research, they’ll report their findings back to them to be used in adjusting the program for terms to come. 

“i chose this project (and alle would echo this),” said haug, “because i am interested in waste habits on campus and i wanted to find out if the green2go program implementation has been successful. if it has and people have relatively positive responses to it, we will be one important step closer to reducing waste and the carbon footprint of the campus.”

from farias’ perspective, the program has indeed been successful. he’s on campus but off-board this term, so he hasn’t used a single green2go container himself, he said with a laugh. but he’s been asking his friends, and they’ve had positive reactions. and just looking around is enough to show why. 

“around campus during new student week, i would see trash cans piled high with all of the bon appétit to-go containers,” farias said. “i can’t imagine what that would look like every single day, for the rest of the term and maybe even the year. i think that was a helpful visual representation for me to think, oh, maybe i am doing some good here.”

scarlet macaws are a species of long-tailed, large-beaked parrots, a poster child of tropical birds. yet in much of their range, including mexico, guatemala, and belize, poachers illegally steal chicks by cutting down nesting trees, which decimates current population and eliminates already-rare cavity nests. compounded with deforestation, it seems even more likely that extinction will claim scarlet macaws next.

***

thankfully, macaw conservation has a power couple on its side. gabriela vigo and her husband, donald brightsmith, met in 2003 at a research center in a remote pocket of the peruvian amazon. now, they have a 7-year-old daughter named mandy lu whom they raise in the rainforest for part of each year while they co-direct the macaw society, formerly known as the tambopata macaw project.

“in peru, we’ve been working in a healthy parrot community to document how they function in areas that have not been impacted by humans,” brightsmith said. “it provides a sort of baseline to which we can compare other more impacted areas.” a professor in the schubot exotic bird health center at texas a&m university, brightsmith has risen to the top of his field by publishing papers about macaw clay licks, breeding, foraging, chick development, ecotourism’s role in conservation, and more.

but he will readily admit that recently, his wife has done most of the field work. in the past few years, vigo went on jungle walks with mandy lu while also taking on a whole new flock of kids: tiny, bald, squawking little things that vigo loved as if they were her own—macaw chicks.

scarlet macaw parents lay between two and four eggs each year, but even if four chicks make it out of the egg, only one or two ever survive naturally to fledging. years of monitoring the macaw society’s nest boxes revealed that breeding pairs focus their efforts on one or two of their oldest and healthiest chicks. unless something goes wrong with the first- and second-born siblings, numbers three and four will be practically ignored from day one.

not so with vigo on the scene. during macaw breeding seasons from 2017 to 2019, she conducted research for her ph.d. at texas a&m: a study called chick relocation, or, on the board in the macaw society’s chick nursery, “the hunger games.” unlike in the books, however, all the players survived till the end.

during the breeding seasons, volunteer tree climbers checked on scarlet macaw nests daily. when they found chicks with too many older siblings, they brought them back to the nursery, where a team of veterinarians cared for them until their opened, after about three weeks. then it was time to find foster nests. the base criteria were similar to those which make for a good human foster home: a comfortable nest with responsible and experienced parents. the complicated part? nests could only have one chick already in it, so that the parents would have enough food for both chicks, and new siblings had to be at the same developmental stage, so that there wasn’t any preferential treatment. it made for a difficult match-making game, but vigo ensured that each chick ended up with a home.

vigo fine-tuned her experiment with great success: aside from a couple of freak lightning strikes (literally), every foster chick fledged. in her words, “it showed that macaw chicks that were naturally doomed to die could be raised by foster parents and help raise population numbers.” this is great news, and not just for her ph.d.

***

when not volunteering with the macaw society, rodrigo león runs his own macaw research in mexico’s lacandon rainforest with natura mexicana. his constant bubbly energy and charming smile hide his strenuous job description: tracking the scarlet macaw nests likely to be poached, removing the chicks before anyone else can get to them, then raising them until fledging and releasing them into safer parts of the jungle.

thanks to vigo, it won’t always be this difficult to protect parrots. now that her experiment has proven successful in peru, where the macaw population is large and stable, the chick relocation method can be replicated by natura mexicana or any other project which seeks to conserve and grow small populations of parrots. instead of raising the rescued chicks by hand, scientists like león can feed them for a couple of weeks, then move them into nests out of poaching range—a true win-win. not only does it give macaw researchers more time to focus on other aspects of conservation; with adult birds teaching the chicks how to find food, fly, and live in the wild, it gives the species a greater chance of survival, one chick at a time.

meanwhile, the macaw society is entering their next phase of work. said brightsmith: “we plan to continue our scientific research and expand our direct conservation actions in areas where macaws and parrots are in trouble,” including mexico, costa rica, guatemala, belize, argentina, and the usa, while maintaining a home base in southeastern peru. better yet, vigo is confident that she and brightsmith won’t be working alone. “we’ve used our research as a training platform,” she said, “to teach a new generation of naturalists and conservationists in peru and worldwide.” perhaps one of these young scientists will start the next society for the birds.

—

greta hardy-mittell is an avid writer and conservationist from vermont, usa. she volunteered for the macaw society from november 2018-january 2019, and credits the experience with changing her life.

in 2011, four students at the university of maryland, college park wondered if they could use one of these issues to fix the other. they noticed that their dining halls were throwing out food at the end of every meal, so they began saving this food from the trash can and instead bringing it to organizations that feed people.

the group of students quickly grew, and soon, students on other campuses got involved. in 2013, the group became a national nonprofit comprised of individual college chapters. thus, food recovery network (frn) was born.

that same year, students at carleton college in northfield, minnesota began looking to get involved with frn. shira kaufman ’16 ran a dining hall waste audit and found that “plenty of good food was going to waste every day while many people in northfield and neighboring faribault did not know where their next meal was coming from.”

but in an article in an october 2013 issue of the college’s student newspaper, the carletonian, kaufman was quoted saying that starting a carleton chapter of frn would involve “lots of really tricky logistics that would rely heavily on students to be there right after meals.” kaufman said that the program works at “mostly big schools in cities where they can quickly get the food to points where it can be distributed,” and would be much harder in a small town like northfield.

flash forward to 2020. northfield now hosts not one but two student-run frn chapters, one at carleton and the other at nearby st. olaf college. carleton’s chapter is one of the oldest and most robust of frn’s 230 chapters across the country. it was the first in minnesota at its founding in january 2014—by kaufman herself.

so how did frn take off at carleton in the end? it turns out that students were willing to show up and put in the work, after all. when kaufman began recovering food six years ago, she said, “i had a lot of my friends roped in to help with recoveries and transporting the food at the very beginning, but by the end of the year we had a pretty large network of volunteers.”

kaufman and her team also coordinated with katie mckenna, manager of carleton’s dining service, bon appétit, to get the program rolling. mckenna agreed that students were the driving force behind the organization; “i helped and coordinated,” she said, “but kaufman did all the heavy lifting!” kaufman’s hard work has also been mutually beneficial for bon appétit. frn reports the amount of food they recover to mckenna, and if she sees that bon appétit is over-producing, they reduce the amount of food they prepare in the first place.

what about the extra food that is still inevitably left over at the end of the night? “beside the obvious benefit of reducing waste,” mckenna said, “it is a great feeling to know that the food that would have been put into the compost bin is going to feed people who need it.”

today, carleton’s frn chapter is run by eight program directors and between 50 and 75 volunteers. these students recover from both of carleton’s dining halls six nights a week, diverting about 25 pounds of food from the waste stream each night. in recent years, the chapter has also started recovering from cub foods and target, where they collect about 2,500 pounds of food weekly. they then distribute the healthy, locally-sourced meals to six community partners, ranging from the greenvale community school to st. dominic’s catholic church to northfield’s food shelf.

and carleton is just one chapter among 230. combined, they have recovered 3.2 million meals and prevented 7.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions since 2011. frn students prove that if enough people are involved, it doesn’t have to be hard to fight food waste, food insecurity, and climate change, all at once.