Walking around campus and seeing the various catering trucks advertising their food by preparing meals at the start of each day to simply put on display outside the vans to then get thrown into the bin at the end of the day is incredibly wasteful.
In the grander scheme of things the waste will not represent a high percentage of total food wasted in Birmingham, however the cumulative impact of the 2-3 vans on campus throwing away ~5 meals per day each (~15 meals total) over time will be much larger. As a university which knows its place as being a leader in environmental and financial sustainability, I do think that it is incumbent on it to not allow third-party trucks to waste food.
I strongly believe that any activity on the campus - regardless of who it is by - that is permitted by the University is effectively endorsed by it. The University must not allow this unnecessary wastage of food - 15 meals per day (75 meals per week) thrown in the bin was not acceptable in the past and it definitely isn't now; waste both increases the prices of the food that does get sold (to cover the costs of it) and also represents a detriment to the environment.
The University should consider the 75 people per week who are missing out on nutritious meals because they cannot afford them, to consider the environment, and to consider the added costs to students purchasing food from the vans to cover costs of waste. If every other organisation the size of the University of Birmingham adopted the same approach to advertising food, then it can be easily envisaged how much extra food would go to waste across the world. Finally, food being left outside to sit all day represents a biohazard and attracts flies, particularly in warmer months.
The Guild must lobby the University on behalf of its members to prevent catering vans from being allowed to advertise food by wasting it. Clear messaging/marketing can be provided to the caterers for them to explain reasons for no longer advertising food in this way, and thus actually improving their own sustainability credentials.
-How much money could be saved by students once the cost of these wasted meals is eliminated?
-How much less food (including meat, vegetables, and legumes) could be produced by preventing these ~75 meals per week from being simply discarded?
-How sustainable would it be if every organisation the size of the University of Birmingham encouraged this level of food wastage?