April is Earth Month, a time to reflect on our duty to care for our planet. Maine Course seizes this opportunity to highlight ways to positively impact the Earth’s health for a brighter future. We organized a series of events throughout the week to promote green thinking and sustainable practices.
As diners entered the campus dining halls, The Maine Course welcomed them with details about upcoming Earth Week events and tips for living a more sustainable, eco-friendly life and The Maine Course's commitment to Sodexo's Better Tomorrow's focus on sustainable sourcing, and carbon emissions and food waste reduction.
Monday's Earth Week event invited students to share their "Green Ideas." The campaign encouraged students, employees, and guests to focus on simple changes that can make a significant impact. Markers and pieces of cardboard were provided for participants to jot down a sustainability idea or an everyday action to be more sustainable.
We celebrated our locally sourced menus on Tuesday, highlighting The Maine Course’s partnership with local vendors. We wanted our diners to feel the impact of their choice, understanding that by choosing local, they're not just enjoying a delicious meal and contributing to the local economy. They're also reducing food miles and unnecessary transportation. This, in turn, helps lower the carbon footprint, reduce the use of fossil fuels, and most importantly, decrease air pollution.
Wednesday featured plant-based menus in the dining halls.
In the United States, 80 million tons of food are wasted annually, with 46% of this waste coming from the food industry. As part of Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow Initiative, we are all part of a collective effort to reduce food waste by 50% at each location. On Thursday, to raise awareness among students and guests about the issue of food waste, the dining halls weighed the food waste produced on campus.
On Friday, campuses organized food drives. Students were encouraged to clean their cupboards of non-perishable items to donate to local food banks, pantries, and food rescue programs. By donating food, we feed people and help the environment by reducing food waste that would otherwise end up in landfills, where it produces methane—a gas more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.
Earth Week events concluded on Saturday. Dining halls focused on composting and recycling, highlighting what we can do to help reduce our waste and its detrimental effects on our environment. The goal was to recover materials and minimize solid waste and the pollution caused by extraction and processing. Composting organic materials helps replenish and revitalize farm and garden soil, keeping them out of landfills where they would otherwise break down and emit greenhouse gases.