Trayless trial tests tolerance

Students found making more trips is an inconvenience.

By Luke Udstuen

Published Nov. 13, 2009

A trayless dining trial caused students to reconsider the necessity of plastic trays within dining halls and is scheduled to end Nov. 15.

Students on both sides of the issue were not hesitant to voice their opinions to administration.

"I just came from a meeting with the rest of the operations managers, and they say they have definitely heard it in their dining halls as far as grumbling," Rollins dining hall Manager Nancy Monteer said. "Maybe the first day was yeah, a fun challenge where people were really embracing it. But now that we're into the week, some of the people aren't sure that this is the way they want to go, because they have to juggle plates and those kinds of things."

The trial caused all dining halls to diverge from normal operation.

"We're staffed differently in the dish room for this trayless trial," Monteer said about Rollins.

Monteer said the difference in Rollins is students were previously requested to put all dishes and silverware onto trays when turning them into the tray collection point.

"The most challenging was the silverware because it would fall and get underneath the belt and cause the belt to jam up," Monteer said.

Because Campus Dining Services staff was repositioned to prepare for the different protocol, trays were not needed in Rollins for dish collection.

"We have damage in the past at the bend, so we've positioned someone at the bend to catch things so they don't cause damage," Monteer said.

A few students were extremely against trayless dining.

"Give me my trays back," sophomore Alexandra Bennett said. "I'm very anti-trayless dining. I can't carry all my crap."

Students didn't think the logic of less food being consumed was sound.

"There's more trips, with the same amount of food," freshman Robert Wolfe said. "It hasn't deterred me (in getting less food). It's just harder to get the food that I need."

The difficulty in carrying many different plates did not outweigh the difficulty of washing trays, Bennett said.

"I always get a salad, an entrée, and a drink," Bennett said. "There's no possible way to carry that in one trip. It makes it very untimely. It's just difficult to make three trips in one meal."

Freshman Michelle Markelz said the lack of trays caused her to be hungry.

"In my experience today, I've found that not having a tray causes me to go back for more food twice or even three times," Markelz said. "So, effectively, it didn't help me reduce the food I took.”

For the most part, student discontent has been quelled. Some say it wouldn't be staved for long if trayless were permanently implemented.

"The first day, when they saw there were no trays, there were a lot of F bombs going on, and a lot of discontent," Wolfe said. "People have stopped caring because they know they're getting trays back next week. But if you told them they were losing their trays for good, there would probably be a petition going around against it."