Horrors
of Nagel
Hammy Wallace, Bennet
Black & Ryan McLean
Based on the data collected from the trash audit of DU, we believe that the
dinning halls need to start focusing on how to provide people with waste
convenience rather than consumer convenience. Nagel is a perfect example
of how poorly the University of Denver promotes its students to properly
dispose of waste. Nagel provides students with many conveniences, almost
all of which produce unnecessary waste. If DU took the small steps to
correct these waste issues at Nagel, DU’s ecological footprint would be
minimized. Although some of these changes would need to be funded by the
school, they are necessary steps that a school of higher education must take to
set an example for the rest of the world to follow. The information
gathered from the trash audit showed that an unacceptable amount of waste in
the landfill bins could actually be recycled or composted. Although
education plays a major role in the improper disposal of materials, our data
showed that the majority of people know where to dispose of their plastic and
food waste; it is just inconvenient for them to do so.
Although Nagel is one of the most popular dinning halls on DU’s Campus, few
people stop to think about the consequences of their Nagel meals. First
off, Nagel only provides students with to-go boxes and paper plates, never
reusable dinning wear. Even if a student sits in Nagel and finishes all
the food on his or her plate they are still forced to create waste by
composting their plates. Although many people don’t see compost as a negative
form of waste, it is always better to reuse materials instead of just disposing
of it after one use. More importantly 57 percent of people who get food from
Nagel leave with their food. Of those who leave with the food, close to
90 percent of them throw away their food scrapes and dinning wear into the
landfill trash bins. The most reasonable change would be that Nagel must
install a dishwashing facility adjacent to the dinning area. Although
this is a very expensive change, it is the best way to cut out the waste
produced in Nagel. With the new technologies of this time, convenience has
become a very important aspect in designing a product. These new
“eco-friendly” compostable dinning wear are great, but in reality it is only
making DU less eco-friendly. As strasser points out, "The new
consumer culture changed ideas about throwing things away, creating a way of
life that incorporated technological advances, organizational changes, and new
perspectives, a lifestyle that linked products made for one-time use…"
(Strasser, 200) Clearly the right thing to do is eliminate one-time use dinning
wear and clean real plates. If this is too big of a change to make so
soon, it would make sense to at least add more composting bins throughout the
school. Nearly 70 percent of students know where to dispose of their
dinning wear, but only six percent of them actually return to a dinning hall to
compost their waste. The problem here is not education nor ignorance, but
a lack of caring and pure laziness. A cheap solution to the amount of
food waste going to landfills is to provide students with more opportunities to
compost their excess food.
Another source of waste is the large meal portions that allow students to order
one meal and not have to think about returning for seconds. The majority
of the 80 people surveyed by the group stated that they normally cannot finish
an entire Nagel portion. Nearly 60 percent of the student body at DU
cannot finish a full meal from Nagel. This number is not acceptable and
can easily be fixed. If anyone from Sodexo took the time to observe how
much food is being thrown out, they would have to agree that the portion sizes
must be changed. This is the problem with the most simple solution, yet
is produces so much unnecessary waste every day. In today’s times there
are many small solutions that can make such a big difference the only problem
is that people don’t care enough to make these small changes in their
lives. As Capra states, “There are solutions to the major problems of our
time, some of them even simple. But they require a radical shift in our
perceptions, our thinking, our values (capra, 4).” There is no excuse for
the massive portions, because Sodexo would actually benefit from the smaller
portions. Although many students would be infuriated by the smaller
sizes, our community at DU needs to be more aware of the changes that need to
be made.
After extensive research, the problem is quite clear; food waste is our most
common waste and is also the easiest waste to dispose of. Composting is simple
and efficient, it should be everywhere, but it isn’t. In Nagel we are letting
hundreds of pounds of food out the door every day, only to be wasted. Change
has to start somewhere and we have the opportunity to start at Nagel.
Implementing non-disposable dishware would not solve the problem entirely but
it would be a great start. In the end, we just need to keep taking small steps
forward and solving Nagel can be DU’s next step towards an eco-friendly campus.
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