Investigating the prevalence and reduction of single-use food and beverage items in the UBC AMS Nest
Creators: name: Li, Tiffany
name: Osamulia, Rico
name: Sanchez, Jacob
name: Zomorodian, Ardalan
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2024

description: In 2019, 1.8 billion tonnes of greenhouse gasses were emitted because of plastic (Ritchie, 2023). These plastics are detrimental to our health and the environment as they damage ecosystems, poison groundwater, and enter our bodies in the form of microplastics (UN Environment Programme, 2023). As a result, Canada has taken significant steps in reducing plastic waste, but has failed to implement effective policies that will reduce single-use item waste as a whole (Dillon Consulting Limited, 2023). Single-Use Items (SUIs) are defined as “... a product that can be used once and is then thrown away.” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2024). This includes items such as coffee cups, take-away cutlery, and straws. Single-use items are usually not recycled or composted, fill up landfills and have significant impacts on our environment (City of Vancouver, 2024). As a leading university in sustainability, the University of British Columbia (UBC) can set a precedent in minimizing all single-use Items on campus. Potentially, this could encourage other universities around the world to follow suit. Several UBC wide policies and plans such as the Alma Mater Society (AMS) Sustainable Action Plan 2026 and Zero Waste Action Plan 2030: Towards a Circular Economy are aligned to apply a circular economy lens to business operations to reduce emissions and waste and more specifically emphasize the desire to reduce or eliminate single-use items. Our project’s main aim was to identify the prevalence of single-use items (SUI) in 6 AMS-owned food vendors in the AMS Nest to propose actions in reducing waste, conserving resources, and mitigating emissions. The intended outcomes of the project are to foster a culture of sustainability, community engagement, and policy change. Moreover, this project seeks to influence stakeholders to support sustainability goals within the UBC community, namely, to adopt initiatives that allow for more efficient material circulation within the UBC food system. Our project adds to the current body of knowledge about SUI use in the AMS Nest by providing an understanding on the practices of students and vendors involved with the AMS-owned food services, identifying potential reductions in SUI inventory and use by understanding the decision-making process of both the consumers and vendors, and providing a baseline for future research regarding SUIs on the UBC campus. Following the Community Based Action Research (CBAR) methodology, we conducted several data collection methods. 1. Conducted surveys with patrons buying food from the AMS-owned food outlets. 2. Conducted semi-structured interviews with a food service manager. 3. Observed general SUI practices of both students and employees in the Nest 4. Observed compliance of the ZWFW strategy by food vendors. 5. Conducted an audit of all single-use-items used by food vendors. Our research has a few key takeaways: (1) there is low compliance of the Zero Waste Food Ware Strategy among food vendors in the AMS Nest (2) the most prevalent single-use items by quantity were paper sandwich bags, cups and sushi trays (3) cost and benefits of reusables are an important factor for vendors (4) although it appears patrons are open to using reusables, there is a lack of availability of dine-in options or reusables (5) there is overall good support for a reusables pilot program but there was more support for dine-in options. (6) overall ZWFWS offers passive support for vendors but most of the implementation is by the food vendor manager, and it appears that there is some uncertainty on expectations of compliance and/or lack of enforcement. Our recommendations include realistic goals that could be implemented by the AMS and Campus + Community Planning. Recommendations for action include the launch of a reusables pilot program and to revisit the implementation strategy of the Zero Waste Food Ware Strategy through consultation sessions. Recommendations for research include the in-depth analysis of the current MugShare program at UBC to understand why awareness of the program is so low. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”