Utah Recycling Alliance Honors Dining Services with Sustainability Award

In a ceremony Wednesday, Nov. 4, Executive Sous Chef Corey Cozzens received the "Innovative Path to Zero Award" on behalf of Utah State University’s Dining Services. The award was presented by the Utah Recycling Alliance at a reception at Brewvies Cinema Pub in Salt Lake City.

Cozzens is Dining Services sustainability coordinator and works closely with all entities across campus as well as with the community in various sustainable initiatives that involve Dining Services.

As part of Dining Services’ mission to “create an excellent college experience,” the organization is dedicated to developing and incorporating policies and procedures of sustainability that balance social responsibility, customer preferences and financial concerns. Every sustainable initiative that Dining Services participates in must meet certain requirements in social, environment and economic areas to ensure that each program undertaken is truly beneficial, sustainable and “creates an excellent college experience” for the students, faculty, staff and guests of Utah State University.

Dining Services current initiatives includes the following.

Reducing food waste in all operations and kitchens across campus by:

Supporting the SNAC (Student Nutrition Access Center) to re-purpose unsold food and donate it to students in need. All Retail Dining operations on campus donate all viable, unsold food to the SNAC pantry. This support also includes more than $4,000 donated in equipment such as fridges, carts, and containers.
Supporting composting in conjunction with the USU Student Sustainability Office and USU Facilities by donating $5,000 toward the purchase and implementation of a first-of-its-kind composting system on campus.
Collaborating with USU Housing and Resident Life in the food waste reduction program “Waste Wars.” Efforts include going tray-less in all dining halls to reduce the amount of food wasted per student.
Donating all scrap meat and other appropriate products to the Willow Park Zoo as part of the “Feed the Zoo” initiative.
Composting or re-purposing preconsumer food waste and coffee grounds from all Dining operations across campus.

Making a commitment to re-useable & eco-friendly materials and products by:

Teaming with Blue Goes Green to implement the distribution and use of reusable mugs on campus.
Providing re-useable mugs for all USU Dining employees.
Implementing a take-out program that enables students to take food from dining halls in reuse-able take-out containers with limited costs to students.
Implementing extensive back-of-the-house recycling programs that include all metals, plastic, paper, glass and cardboard.
Replacing all paper goods in dining locations with compostable and recyclable materials. Café locations on campus also offer a variety of reusable plates and mugs for patrons dining in-house.
Installing recycling units in all dining operations to encourage students and faculty to reduce material waste.
Purchasing from Cache Valley farms and suppliers whenever possible to ensure fresh, local and healthy food for our consumers.
Supporting the Utah State University Agricultural Station by buying and selling fresh farm products at Luke’s Café on The Quad.

Encouraging alternative transportation by: