In terms of both the new Commons building itself and choices you make in Dining Services, how is your operation helping sustainability at Bates?

CS: The building itself, clearly, is a highly efficient envelope. It's self-ventilating, which reduces the use of electricity — the only air conditioning is in the cooking areas, because the equipment gives off so much heat. The equipment is EnergyStar rated. The lighting system is, in many places, motion-sensitive.

We recycle the "gray water" [dishwashing rinse water] on the scrim line and the dish machine — we've always done that. None of our food waste goes into the waste drain. We don't have any grinders [garbage disposals] on the pot machine, the dish machine or any sinks. The waste is collected and sent to a pig farmer. The water fixtures are all low-flow.

All of our paper products are unbleached so they can be composted. We do that through Ricker Farms in Lisbon, and [Bates grounds supervisor] Bill Bergevin uses Ricker's mulch. We minimize the use of paper products. I really try to avoid putting paper out whenever possible.

We've been looking at the way that we transport and present water on campus, so that in the building you can have pitchers of water instead of bottles.

We reduced packaging. When we spec a product, we try to get the brand with the least packaging so that when we bring it in, we're reducing waste.

And Baker Commodities [based in Billerica, Mass.] is buying our used cooking oil now. They are buying it back from us when we used to have to pay them to come take it away. It is incredible to think about — people wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole and now they're buying it from us, and some of it is made into biodiesel. I think it's just great. It's, for me, a sense of where we're all going.

Being green saves green — money, that is.

CS:  People think that being green is more expensive, when in reality, if you balance it all out, it's not. For instance, we buy compostable plates. Are they a little more expensive than the Chinet which is noncompostable? Sure.

But that incremental increase is so insignificant in the scope of things. If you think about a plate that you can't compost, so it goes into the waste stream, so now you have to pay the tipping fee to get rid of this plate. And then, where are you going to store used plates, and what are you doing to the environment, instead of paying those few cents on the front end to save it on the back end? People just see the upfront costs and don't think about the larger costs in terms of the full cycle of that plate.

If you look at our recycling, there's nothing magical in there. There're some metal bins, some plastic bins, a person working it — you would have to have an employee in a trash room just as we have working the recycling room. It's a wash.

You just need to think about how you're doing it. I think people just equate "organic" with more expensive, which usually is the case, so they equate "green" with more expensive — when it is not the case.

Because of increased storage space in the new building, you've been able to reduce deliveries, which saves money and cuts your carbon footprint.

CS: It also allows me more flexibility. So now we're thinking, Great, we're not going to get Wednesday deliveries, so what can the purchasing staff now do on Wednesdays that could enhance the operation? Before, they were getting deliveries every day, so they were just focused on that.

 — From an August 2008 conversation with Christine Schwartz, director of Bates Dining Services