Foodware Reusables at Haas
Grant Amount: $49,690
Project Theme: Waste Diversion & Reduction, Education & Behavior Change
Project Sponsor: Haas Campus Sustainability
Project Description:
Single-use packaging leads to tons of unnecessary waste and has become one of the biggest environmental problems of our time. Nearly 20 billion pieces of litter a year are from food-service disposables and only 9% of plastic produced was ever recycled. At UC Berkeley, hundreds, if not thousands, of single-use items are discarded at each catered event, leading to significant waste and carbon emissions. Today’s throw-away model is problematic at each step of the way. FoodWare is taking action to solve this issue.
The project aims to fully replace single-use food packaging for catered events by introducing a reusables service driven by a sustainability platform that will allow to easily measure the environmental impact of students, events and Haas, as well as a mobile app for students to conveniently collect & return reusables and track their individual impact.
Project Goals:
The goal is to eliminate all single-use food packaging at Haas and help reduce one of the biggest causes for climate change and environmental pollution. Specifically, the project aims to:
1) Provide reusables service to at least 10 Haas event, quantify impact and incorporate learnings to develop a reuse model that can be scaled across UC Berkeley to meet zero-waste goals
2) Educate and raise awareness among the UC Berkeley community on zero waste and the importance of reusables
3) Develop and test a sustainability platform
4) Advance Haas’ zero waste goals and reduce waste from single-use packaging.
Project Leaders: Romina Silva and Sandra Cuevas