Cafeteria Greenery

When I'm in the cafeteria I enjoy having the luxury of using a tray to carry my various plates and drinks to my seat. However this decadent luxury has been revoked by the fine people at Aramark for the unassailable reason of saving the environment. Naturally given their intentions I have no grounds upon which no complain, and no argument to offer against their noble crusade. As napkin holders tell us (now housing 100% dye free recycled napkins) not having trays allows us to save the environment by saving water and soap while reducing food waste caused by trays. The fact that trays cause food waste is undeniable as shown by objective statistics compiled by Aramark using the grand sample of one day of food waste from our University (details such as the control, data gathering process, etc are unnecessary). And the atrocious wasting of non-replenish-able natural resources such as soap and water speak for themselves.

Who believes this facade? Without even trying to compare the inconvenience of making four trips just have a meal with the carbon footprint associated with washing a 18"x 12" piece of plastic, can anyone take this seriously? This whole ploy, like most "green movements", is just designed to save money and not doing a damn thing for the environment. If the company could just be upfront and say "We're cutting simple commodities in an attempt to reduce costs and keep prices fixed.", I would actually respect their decision. As it is I'm just annoyed. Even if they were telling the truth, the result would be a negative one. If research would be spent on more reasonable things, eventually technological advances will come along which will lead to safer environmental practices. Look at Poland Spring. In attempt to reduced costs they find an optimized design for their water bottles which maximizes volume while minimizing surface area. As a result their bottles use less plastic. Here we see a technological advancement helping the environment, while providing no discomfort to the consumer. Aramark removes trays, slightly improving the environment, and greatly annoying the consumer.