The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

The news site of Santa Barbara City College.

The Channels

Club, food services team up to offer reusable to-go boxes

Ideas from the Students for Sustainability Club and the food service faculty to go green have come into fruition through the form of a reusable clamshell to-go box.

In an effort to stride in the green movement and keep trash out of the trashcans a new reusable to-go box program has been created. The plans to start a convenient program that will allow students to have their own to-go boxes to carry their food in had been processing since last semester.

Mark Sullivan, the college’s food services director talked with Adam Green, adviser for the Students for Sustainability Club, about a way to methodize the stealing of the porcelain plates in the cafeteria and to eliminate the amount of trash from the compostable to-go boxes.

“Most people would say ‘just get me a to-go container,'” said Sullivan. “Because they are getting a to-go container and they are just sitting down at a table, they’re eating, and then they’re throwing it away.”

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Originally, the compostable to-go boxes in the cafeteria had a price tag of fifty cents more than just using a plate. The cost was higher because Sullivan, Green and the Students for Sustainability Club wanted to discourage the use of the single-use to-go boxes.

The program has been made as convenient as possible said Sullivan. The cost of one box is $3 and students and staff members can swap in their dirty containers for a new one any time so they don’t have to wash the boxes themselves.

The use of the new containers has been especially popular with faculty members.

“A lot of faculty members in the office here … really liked the idea of being able to bring the boxes back and being reusable,” said Sullivan.

For now there are signs of the new program prospering with about 300 boxes in circulation in the cafeteria and already more than 150 purchased. If the sales continue at the current pace, Sullivan said the containers will be distributed to the snack shops on both West and East campuses.

The eco-friendly food programs are starting to spring up in colleges nationally. Alabama State University has started using the reusable to-go boxes, as well.

The evolution of to-go boxes has slowly grown from Styrofoam boxes to clear plastic POA boxes to sugarcane fiber boxes to compostable to the latest recyclable plastic boxes.

The move away from single-use containers comes at a time when the city of Santa Barbara is seriously pursuing a plan to put a tax on single-use bags given out at stores.

Sullivan stated that he thinks this is one small step in the college and community green movement.

“We’ve come a long way,” said Sullivan.

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