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Ship Dining Sustainability

Ship Dining prides itself on offering sustainable options for students. There are a number of sustainability programs as part of our daily operations and because of our efforts we are recognized by the Pennsylvania Environmental Resource Consortium as Pennsylvania Campus Sustainability Champion.

Ship Dining has also received a grade A from PETA for our dining hall menu and vegan options.

Supporting Local Farms

Dining Services purchases seasonal produce from the following Pennsylvania farms:

  • Maplewood Farm, Shippensburg, PA
  • Ivan Reiff’s Farm, Leola, PA
  • Hess Bros. Fruit Farm, Leola, PA
  • Leola Produce Auction, Leola, PA
  • Bob Musser Farm, Lancaster, PA
  • John Stoner, Lancaster, PA
  • Still Valley, Willow Street, PA
  • Brown’s Orchard, Loganville, PA
  • Cedar Meadow Farm, Holtwood, PA
  • Metzler & Wisser Farms, Holtwood, PA
  • Lancaster County Co-Op, Quarryville, PA
  • Amos King, Quarryville, PA
  • Jacob Glick, New Holland, PA
  • Kauffman’s Farm, Bird in Hand, PA
  • Richard Barge, Ronks, PA
  • Good Harvest Vegetable Farm, Strasburg, PA

Sustainability Facts About Ship Dining

  1. The dining halls partake in single stream recycling of cardboard, aluminum plastic and glass. 
  2. Coffee grounds have been donated for composting at the organic campus farm.
  3. Energy Star efficient appliances power the dining halls.
  4. All whole eggs served are cage free. 
  5. Farmer Brothers 100% free-trade coffee is served at Reisner and Kriner from Central America. Starbucks has one free-trade coffee every day. Mosaic LOCAL brand coffee is sold in the CUB.
  6. Antibiotic free meat: all beef, pork, poultry are not automatically given antibiotics, only if the animal is unhealthy.
  7. All dining hall milk is 100% antibiotic free 
  8. Fryer oil in dining halls are transformed into biodiesel! All used oil is collected for Professor Ben Culbertson in the Art Department and 15 percent of sludge is converted and used to heat kilns. Oil from the CUB is recycled through an outside source.
  9. The Reisner Hall solar power panel heats hot water for the dishwashing machines.
  10. Dining Services volunteers hours to the Campus Community Garden and Campus Organic Farm.

Project Clean Plate

Project Clean Plate is dedicated to reducing waste, conserving energy and educating students about exercising portion control in Kriner and Reisner dining halls.

Ship Dining challenges all dining guests to participate in Project Clean Plate by selecting an amount of food appropriate to their hunger level. Twice a year a 10 percent drop has occurred, which is about 1.6 pounds per student. MSA's Feed A Friend program receives the money saved.

Trayless Dining

Since 2009, the "Go Trayless" program has decreased the amount of wasted water and food going into landfills, reduced chemical usage (detergents, rinse and drying agents) for washing trays and has conserved energy by eliminating the need for heated water in the washing process. Going trayless has also raised awareness of healthier eating habits by encouraging customers to take less food overall, combating mindless eating, taking enough food to simply fill your plate, even if you aren't hungry or know better.

Ship saves over 700 gallons of water per day by being trayless.

Other Programs

Refillable To-Go Program: This reduces disposables at the CUB by selling $5 one-time purchase to-go containers. Use these containers in Reisner for your meals. Fill up and leave, pay for your meal, bring back the container, clean or dirty.

Balanced U Sustainability: This offers a refillable mug program that gives customers a discount on coffee and soda refills while protecting the environment by reducing the amount of disposables utilized on campus. Purchase your Ship Dining Water Bottle at all retail locations for only $5.

STEPS Program: The packaging choices that we make today have a significant impact on our environment and our community. The STEPS renewable packaging solutions program addresses a fast-growing movement away from petroleum based packaging and offers our customers products made from plant-based, renewable materials that also offer more recovery options to help reduce waste. Look for STEPS packaging at retail locations and with our Outtakes grab and go items, made in the USA.

Food Recovery: A group of social work majors have a food recovery chapter at Ship. This program diverts food from Reisner Dining Hall. This food, which would have otherwise rotted in a landfill, is packed and transported to a local church, which supplies free dinners to support food-insecure residents.