Business, Hospitality and Auxiliary Services’ sustainability team, along with Pitt Eats, offer many zero-waste programs supporting the University’s commitment to reduce and divert waste from landfills.
Choose to Reuse
More than two million single-use to-go containers are used in dining facilities across campus each semester. To reduce waste from single-use to-go containers, the Choose to Reuse initiative, powered by OZZI, was created in 2016. Choose to Reuse allows diners at The Eatery, The Perch, and Create and True Burger in the Schenley Café to order meals in reusable to-go containers! Currently, the University has pledged in the Pitt Sustainability Plan to serve 50% of to-go meals and beverages in reusable containers by 2025.
How to Choose to Reuse:
Diners who Choose to Reuse should ask for their meal to be served in a reusable container when ordering. At checkout, they will be asked to enroll in the program if it is their first time or give the cashier their OZZI token in exchange for their reusable container. Once the diner has finished their meal, they will simply drop their container off at one of the four Choose to Reuse machines located in the Eatery, the lobby floor of Sutherland Hall, or in Schenley Café. Diners will be provided with a token in exchange for their used container. Be sure to collect your token as you will need to present it to the cashier to use a Choose to Reuse container for your next meal!
Once a used container is received by the Pitt Eats staff, it will be washed with the highest food safety-grade dishwashing equipment and procedures and prepared for its next user.
Food Recovery
The Food Recovery Heroes student group has worked with dining staff, the Pitt Pantry, 412 Food Rescue, and the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank since 2014 to recover edible surplus food from across campus and donate it to hunger-fighting agencies.
This campus-wide effort to stop food waste and end hunger earned the Food Recovery Heroes the PRC Zero Waste Excellence Award in 2018, as well as recognition from the EPA through the Food Recovery Challenge.
Explore campus food recovery data on the University of Pittsburgh's Sustainability Dashboard.
Join the effort to fight food waste and end hunger by volunteering to become a Food Recovery Hero!
Composting
After three years of working with our cherished local small business food waste compost hauler, we regret to share that they have closed their business. During the time that we worked together, we collected and composted more than 150,000 pounds of food waste and compostable packaging from dining and residence halls across campus. This was then processed into a sustainable and organic soil amendment used on local farms (instead of synthetic fertilizer). While will need to temporarily pause the program, we are working hard to resume food waste compost collection and look forward to making an impact again very soon.