The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality Materials Management Program recently awarded a grant to reduce food waste by at least 10 percent on the campus of Oregon State University. The $27,000 in funding will be used to install a Portland-based computer system in the dining halls that uses scales and cameras to collect food waste data.
According to the university, information collected from the system will be used by dining hall managers to alter or reduce purchases. The school’s dining halls reportedly produce between 200,000 and 250,000 pounds of wasted food annually.