Last week, my email inbox welcomed a perfect example of what a national network of Campus Kitchens is all about. It started with Christine Nemetz, the coordinator at the Campus Kitchen at Gettysburg College and a question we’ve been talking about on this here blog: how do we styrofoam1make our Campus Kitchens more sustainable?

Specifically, Christine was talking containers: a switch from styrofoam clamshells to paper bags, but how now to single serve dishes, like salads? And she wondered about deliveries: how could we do a bike delivery shift?

Across the country, at the Campus Kitchen at Augsburg College, coordinator Brian Noy answered. Although he couldn’t solve the great container debate, he did have an answer: bike trailers! He even included a link to the very best hitch for delivering meals on bike wheels. 

This email exchange reached even farther west, to Emily Paulson at the Campus Kitchen at Gonzaga University. She had an answer: Tupperware! At CKGU, they’re trying out reusables for individual deliveries, and working out the kinks.

Reducing waste! Exchange of ideas! Mutual aid!  I like how we do things here at CKP.  

(P.S. A somewhat similar debate is floating around DC. Since 50% of the pollution in tributaries of the Anacostia River is plastic bags, a bill currently before City Council would charge a fee for plastic bags, but some worry about undue burden of a fee on low-income people and social service agencies that use plastic bags.)

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