Paresky Commons is growing even greener with lowered levels of compost waste, partnerships with local food suppliers and environmental awareness intiatives. Over the course of Fall Term 2011, Commons lowered its compost from 30.4 tons in the fall of 2010 to 25 according to Patricia Russell, Sustainability Coordinator and Instructor in Science. Russell said that Commons managed to lower its quantity of compost waste between 2010 and 2011, a period when the total trash production of campus increased. Mike Giampa, Food Services Director for Paresky Commons, said that the reduced compost was not attributed to students throwing their compostable items in the trash. He said, “All of the leftover food gets composted. All of the food scraps from the preparation process, called pre-consumer waste, get composted. The lettuce cores and other food scraps that we get during preparation get composted. Upstairs, whatever food goes on the tray line gets composted.” “We’re pretty good at it. If you go look at the trash, you might find some things that occasionally get thrown out, but that trash is nowhere near five tons,” he continued. Giampa cited Aramark’s continued emphasis on educating students about sustainability as assisting the decrease in compost tonnage. He said, “I think Aramark does a really good job of this education with the signs that are up in Commons.” Eco-Action, a student club dedicated to environmental awarness, is also playing an active role in educating students about food waste said Giampa. He said, “Eco-Action asked me to do a bread ORT display, where we’re going to show the students how much bread is wasted in a day. I think many students will definitely see it and become more conscious of how much they’re wasting.” Beyond decreasing compost, Paresky Commons introduced several new initiatives with the support of local food vendors this past fall. “One of the biggest [initiatives] is our agreement with North Star farms out of Westport, Mass., a local farmer greenhouse that’s growing vegetables for us,” said Giampa. “We’re supporting a local farm that obviously involves less emission of greenhouse gases, and we’re getting top-notch produce in the process. There’s definitely a big difference when we get local food.” Giampa credited Dave Mulloy, a prior manager of Paresky Commons, with introducing him to the idea. Other local-business oriented initiatives include the use of bagels from Perfecto’s Café, fewer but higher quality beef entrees and the use of “more pork and poultry products that are raised in a humane and sustainable environment,” according the Aramark’s CampusDish website. The new ideas come from a variety of sources. “My whole team has input,” Giampa said. “We also take suggestions from the community as well as Aggie Kip [School Nutritionist] and Patricia Russell.” The new intiatives required more funding from the school, but Giampa said that the school has been supportive of the sustainability efforts. “[Purchasing from] the local vendors is costing more money, but our budget for this year has been approved by the school. We could never do this without the school’s full support,” he said. Students are reacting positively to these recent changes, according to Giampa. In Paresky Commons’s student survey conducted every year, Giampa saw a positive increase in the results of many questions related to these initiatives, including freshness of food, availability of healthy options and quality of vegetarian options. Aramark is looking forward to this year’s Green Cup Challenge, where Andover will compete against other schools to reduce the most electricity between late January and early February. Giampa said that he plans to use initiatives similar to what Paresky Commons did in last year’s Green Cup Challenge. “We always turn off the lights in between meals, and this year we talked to our team about doing the same thing with our equipment,” Giampa said. “We shut off the tray belts between meals, and we put our toasters on stand by when we don’t need them.”
