At a private school in Newark, N.J., students dine daily on ingredients grown on the building’s roof. In Baltimore, city schools have their own 33-acre organic farm, while in Riverside, Calif., elementary school students trundle wheelbarrows of lettuce and buckets of strawberries from a community garden behind the playground directly to their own salad bar.

Across the United States, efforts to make school lunches more environmentally friendly have paired with the local food movement, as educators try to reconnect children with the growing season. School lunchrooms are also getting revamped to cut water and energy use and lessen food waste.

Although not every college can get all its milk, yogurt, and sour cream from its own herd of cows (as does the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), or cage-free eggs from its own hens (as does Vermont’s Green Mountain College), dozens of universities are doing away with that rectangular symbol of the cafeteria: the tray. It’s a simple change, but one that school administrators say can dramatically reduce waste.

For example, the University of Illinois studied the environmental impact of eliminating trays in a dining hall that served an average of 1,300 students per day. “Not having trays saves 516 gallons of water a day – that’s 110,940 gallons in an academic year,” says Kristen Kirsten Ruby, assistant director of housing for marketing.

In addition to the water saved, the dining hall also used 473 pounds less dishwashing detergent that year. Even more interesting, Ms. Ruby adds: “We also noticed a 40 percent reduction in the amount of food waste.” Because students couldn’t carry as much, she explains, they didn’t take more than they could eat.

ARAMARK, a food-service provider for some 600 institutions of higher education, conducted a survey of 25 schools that found that trayless dining reduced waste by an average of 25 to 30 percent. When it asked 92,000 students at 300 colleges about getting rid of trays in cafeterias and dining halls, 75 percent said they were in favor of the change.

But the range of initiatives is as varied as the institutions. “We’re at the pioneering stage,” says David Krueger, codirector of the sustainability program at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. “All of these bottom-up local initiatives [on college campuses] mimic the larger sustainability movement. It’s a carbon copy of trends across the spectrum.”

The University of Illinois, which already has its own apple orchard, is breaking ground on a 10-acre farm this summer – complete with frost protection to extend the growing season – that it hopes will be able to supply up to 50 percent of its vegetable needs.

The school is also moving forward with other ecofriendly efforts: A composting program will be started at the same time as the vegetable garden. And for the past three years, facilities management vehicles have run on cooking oil collected from dining halls.

“I don’t think we’re done,” says Ruby, noting that the university plans to roll out trayless dining in more of its halls. “Sustainability is definitely a continuing work in progress.”

At the University of California, San Diego, each student is given a reusable water bottle at the beginning of the school year. Also this year, dining services eliminated styrofoam and plastic utensils. If students want takeout, it comes with real plates and silverware.

“This system has been successful because Housing and Dining Services teamed up and created drop-spots at each dorm and apartment complex where students can leave their dirty dishes and utensils,” explains Christine Clark, a communications specialist for the university, in an e-mail. “Dining Services picks up the used dish ware daily.” Also, the dining halls all serve Fair Trade sugar, coffee, tea, and chocolate.

While no one is saying that fast food has lost its place as a staple of college all-nighters, the impact from green initiatives have the potential to continue years after graduation day, says Dr. Krueger. “In the sense that colleges and universities are incubators for ideas and forming the next generation of minds and lives, modeling practices that they can take with them is the most important thing we can do.”

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