Morrison Dining Utensil Separation Bins

However, some of the other dining halls never struggled with this. I wondered: what do they do differently than Morrison? For starters, they're a lot smaller. But I also noticed that their dish return areas were more efficient by having separate bins or chutes where students place utensils. This not only helps separate the utensils from the plates, bowls, and cups, but also takes care of the sorting work.

I wondered: How could something like this be applied to Morrison? I started by gathering a lot of information about the problem. I talked to the manager of Okenshields, a dining hall that had separate utensil chutes, to understand how much it helps them. I also talked to the head chef at Morrison to understand their struggles and took a trip to their dish room. I learned that the issues spanned much more than separating utensils — for example, the dish room is underground, requiring a lot of time and effort just to bring dirty items downstairs and clean items back upstairs for distribution.

However, I still really wanted to try to help by solving the utensil problem. I assembled a team from the Residential Sustainability Leaders club and went to work on designing the first prototype! My first idea consisted of placing bins on the moving carousels themselves. It was really fun to come up with this idea; we made many drawings, weighed utensils and other items, talked to some other managers, and discussed ideas in the Student Assembly Dining Committee meetings. We made a presentation and I pitched the idea to the general manager of Morrison and the director of Cornell Dining. They liked the idea, but said that it might not be feasible once Morrison returned to fully reusable dishware (due to space constraints in both the dish drop and dish room).

While this was a little discouraging, it didn't stop me from thinking of additional ideas. I spent a lot of time over winter break and during the beginning of the Spring 2023 semester thinking of additional ideas, and after lots of iterations, I came up with the idea of simply having bins underneath the carousels. With this system, students would place utensils in the bins and staff would bring the bins to the upper-level dish room for washing. The Morrison GM liked the idea, and while it took a lot of effort to implement it because it was low on their priorities, with enough convincing and influence, I made it happen!

At first, I was really worried that the bins would be unsuccessful. It appeared that students were not following the sorting properly, the labels would fall off, and sometimes the bins would become really full. However, after a little while, improvements were made and the system started to work great.

Overall, the system was a big success at Morrison. It reduces the number of items placed on the dish carousel and helps staff wash utensils quicker, which helps the small number of staff they have. Most importantly, since its implementation, this system has helped Morrison switch to reusable dishware, preventing tens of thousands of disposable items from entering the landfills each day! Additionally, according to dishwashing staff, the system has made working conditions safer by significantly reducing the amount of utensils falling from the dish return onto the staff in the dish room below.

We also implemented similar utensil separation systems in Bethe and Becker Dining Halls, which has helped both operate more efficiently. A different dining hall, North Star, also adopted similar bins!

At the end of the Fall 2023 semester, I got my hands dirty (literally) and worked in the Morrison dish room for two shifts. I learned so much more about their struggles and have been thinking of additional ways to help. Unfortunately, most of the improvements will require large investments in renovating the place, but perhaps I can run a cost-benefit analysis to convince them to do so. In the meantime, I will focus on improving the usage of the bins through better labeling, signage, and education.

Overall, this has been a super interesting project in so many facets, and I am glad that I became involved!

Interestingly, this project has become quite well-known at Cornell. I have been featured in a Cornell Daily Sun article and recognized by Cornell President Kotlikoff in the 2024 State of the University Address for my work on this project. See the links above!