Three in One

Through a life cycle assessment, we aim at educating the consumers, recycling organic waste, and enhancing the local economy.

With this project we aim do to a Life Cycle Assesment of all the products being sold in the catering facilities of the University. This way we can know the carbon footprint of all these products. The purpose of this project is threefold. The first goal is to educate. The carbon footprint will be shown in the menu for each product. For this we propose two alternatives: (1) the final consumer can see the impact of his/her eating habits and choose from that and (2) the carbon footprint will be charged from the final consumer, utilizing one of the six principles of sustainability, the full cost price. The second goal is to recycle organic waste. The waste that is produced in the catering facilities can be transformed into compost. Here, we propose that this compost can be done either indoors or outdoors (the amount of space needed for this can be calculated once we know the amount of food that is being wasted). The third goal is to enhance the local economy. This can be done by selling the compost to potential buyers (such as local farmers or people interested in gardening). The group that will be responsible for this can be (1) the Green Office, (2) the gardening group of Storm Association, or (3) a new group can be created. Regarding the costs and profits from this trade, the costs (land, work, invested capital) can be remunerated and the profits can be allocated to environmental projects, such as those of regenerative agriculture. After the rollout of this project we will assess how the food purchases in the catering facilities have changed and if, indeed, there has been a bigger environmental awareness.

It will involve the Uithof campus and all the buildings that have a catering facility. It will also involve the use of some university space to install a compost area.

Build a compost would be to only financial cost.

As long as the cafeteria is used, there would be no problem.