Ansley Keane ’23
Staff Writer
During the later months of the fall 2021 semester, the Mount Holyoke Dining Commons will begin implementing a solution to the challenge of maintaining the flexibility of takeout options without creating excessive waste. Starting soon, students will be able to take their meals to-go using returnable, reusable takeout containers. This program will allow students to keep the takeout option while also reducing waste. Currently, the Dining Commons is providing single-use compostable containers for students to use, both for eating in and takeout.
On Aug. 18, 2021, Dining Services announced a new to-go partnership with USEFULL. USEFULL is a takeout program that allows users to check out reusable cups and takeout containers to take their food to-go and then return the containers within a two-day window. Though the partnership was announced recently, conversations about it began a couple of years ago before being put on hold because of the pandemic.
“It started with a student reaching out to me in 2018 or 2019,” Alison Rogers ’12, CEO and Founder of USEFULL, began. “Her name is Kathy [Hu], and she was a senior at the time, and she focused on the USEFULL model as part of her … senior project. So she then introduced me to [Executive Director of Auxiliary Services] Rich [Perna] … and we were kind of in the thick of conversations right as COVID[-19] hit … So we just put things on pause … and then last fall [Perna] and I reconnected to think about how to launch on Mount Holyoke.”
Although takeout options offer both convenience and an added layer of safety during the pandemic, they are also wasteful and have harmful environmental effects. “What we might not realize is that paper coffee cups are lined with plastic, which makes them unrecyclable,” Rogers explained. She also described how the issue with single-use containers goes beyond adding to landfills; plastic is made from petroleum, so there is a big connection between single-use to-go containers and climate change.
Compostable products also present issues because they require certain conditions to properly biodegrade, and simply throwing them away has a similar effect as throwing away plastic containers.
Mount Holyoke’s new partnership with USEFULL is designed, in part, to help increase the sustainability of the Dining Commons’ takeout program.
“Last fall, at this time, we didn’t have a lot of students on this campus, but what we noticed is we were going through an awful lot of paper products, and it was pretty wasteful,” Perna explained.
While the Dining Commons did offer a reusable, returnable takeout program in the spring 2021 semester, Perna noted that USEFULL’s technology could help ensure that the containers are returned promptly, which will help reduce the number of containers Dining Services will have to purchase. Perna explained that the Dining Commons needed a way to create some accountability for returning the containers. USEFULL’s technology includes a QR code on each container that students scan to check it out. After a container is checked out, users must return it within two days. USEFULL will remind students to return the containers, and it will charge them if the containers are not returned. Perna stressed that Dining Services’ goal is not to charge students. “We don’t want to charge students — but we want to get the containers back so we can get them back out without having to purchase more,” Perna explained.
Additionally, the data provided by USEFULL’s technology will provide students with the ability to see the impact of this new partnership. “We can quantify impact from each student using this solution, and we can quantify impact of the whole campus. So what you’ll see once the system goes live on campus is a TV dashboard that in real-time will show the impact,” Rogers shared.
Having Mount Holyoke as USEFULL’s first college partnership is an exciting moment for Rogers. “We’re so excited about it, and it warms my heart so much to have Mount Holyoke be the first mover with us,” Rogers said.
During her time at Mount Holyoke, Rogers often took her meals from Blanchard, which resulted in a significant amount of waste. Rogers deemed her frequent use of takeout as hypocritical, given she was a geography major who cared deeply about the environment. However, her interest in the environment converged with a newfound interest in entrepreneurship during an internship she had during her senior year. She also cared about the environment and became interested in solving environmental problems.
“I did an internship down in Holyoke for the Conservation Commission and started to get really interested in some of their environmental problems,” Rogers recalled. “Long story short, [I] got the entrepreneurial bug senior year, and it just made me feel so alive … I think I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur solving environmental problems with practical solutions.”
For current Mount Holyoke students who might also be interested in using their ideas to solve big challenges or using entrepreneurship to positively impact the world, Rogers advised them not to be afraid of failing at first.
“When USEFULL was essentially an idea [a fellow Mount Holyoke alum, Stephanie Crimmins] gave me advice: fail fast … The idea of starting small, learning, failing, iterating, refining and … going back out there to keep learning more,” Rogers said. “I also think that to be an entrepreneur, you can’t be afraid of people telling you no, and you can’t be afraid of failing, because both of those will guide you to something good,” she added.
Once the USEFULL program launches later this semester, students will not only have a positive impact on the environment while still having the option to take food to-go, but they will also be able to support a member of the Mount Holyoke community in her mission to eliminate plastic waste.