Dining services at University of North Texas is one of the more largely impactful entities on our campus serving thousands of students, faculty and visitors each year. Realizing the responsibility at hand, dining services has added a focus on sustainability to their repertoire. There are many programs, new and old, that are being implemented to contribute to campus sustainability. The focus is not only on sustainability concerning our environment, with programs such as a prime vendor, but also on a sustainable lifestyle, with the renovation of Mean Greens dining hall.

Mean Greens has reopened as UNT’s first all Vegan dining hall. With everything in the dining hall being vegetarian and vegan, Chef Wanda White was challenged with the task of making delicious, tasteful choices for patrons. She scoured through cookbooks and online resources to find the most delectable combinations of health conscious food until she got the menu just right. I was able to go in for lunch yesterday and the food was outstanding! Everything that I tried was fresh and extremely flavorful! I am not campaigning for everyone to become vegan, however I highly recommend trying the new Mean Greens dining hall, whether carnivore or vegetarian or vegan because it truly is amazing.

Another great thing about Mean Greens is the use of sustainable materials in the renovation. The art on the walls is a reminder of the benefits of choosing healthier dining options, all of the fake plants in the entry way have been replaced by real ones, and water features have been added to contribute to a great atmosphere in which to eat. As amazing as it is, the vegan dining hall is not the only way dining services is doing their part to lower their impact on our environment.

There are many other sustainable programs implemented by dining services that warrant recognition. One such program is the use of Ben E. Keith as our prime vendor. Not only do they try very hard to purchase all that they can within the southwest region, but also, having one vendor cuts the number of delivery trucks on campus every week from 15 trucks, three times a week to one truck, three times a week.

One of my favorite ways that dining services works to lower their impact is the decision to make everything from scratch. Making everything from scratch means that food is fresh, delicious and void of preservatives and additives. It also ensures that less packaging is used in the preparation of food on campus and therefore less waste is produced as a byproduct of the preparation. Another sustainable program from dining services is the conversion of used cooking oil to biodiesel fuel. A company called Alliance comes to campus and collects all of our used cooking oil, which it then converts to biodiesel fuel.

With the many students and faculty that use the dining halls on campus there is a major responsibility to be aware of the kind of waste being produced by the containers used for “to go” food, napkins and plastic ware. With this responsibility in mind, all of the napkins are made from recycled materials and the plastic ware are made out a material that can biodegrade in a commercial compost facility within 60-180 days.

Dining services honors their responsibility to the environment in many ways, there are of course areas that could be improved upon, but what they show us is that every change of behavior, although it may be difficult, is important, and large or small as it may be it is a change and that’s the first step.