Dining Services is continuously seeking ways to reduce the amount of waste produced on campus and increase its recycling efforts.

• Since 1993 food waste from Dining Services has been sent to a local company where the food is sanitized and fed to pigs.
• Oil waste is collected and taken to a local plant for biodiesel production. This certificate signifies the latest collection data and the effect on the environment.
• Dining Services gives an incentive to students who use their own reusable mugs instead of disposable cups by offering a discount on fountain and hot beverages in Cafe Vivian, the Food Gallery at Frist, and the Chancellor Green, and Woodrow Wilson and Studio 34 Cafes.
• Corn and other plant based products such as cups and cutlery are purchased for catering events. These products are compostable, not recyclable.
• Paper goods at the Frist Campus Center are made of 100% post consumer recycled materials.
• All Princeton logo bottled water sold in our retail venues is bottled locally using ENSO biodegradable plastic bottles.
• All University dining halls will be tray-less beginning in the 2011-12 academic year. Studies have shown that without trays students take 20-30 percent less food,reducing water and energy costs by $4,000 a year while avoiding 23 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
• As of 2010, efficient new dishwashers have been installed in five of six dining halls, each saving about 300,000 gallons of water per year, or a total of 1.5 million gallons- more than enough to fill two Olympic-size swimming pools.
• Princeton University was given an A in the Food and Recycling category of the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card.