The Advocate - May 2005 Index

The Advocate’s articles about the food services at the Graduate Center have generated quite a bit of noise of late. Restaurant Associates has also requested a meeting in the fall to discuss some of these matters. With the RA contract up for renewal in 2006, we’re excited about this. Here are some of the interesting items The Advocate has received:

Styrofoam Cups at 365 Express
April 19, 2005 9:02 a.m.
To: Charles Hunter, Food Director, Restaurant Associates
From: Abigail Schoneboom, Student, GC
Subject: Styrofoam use in GC Café

Dear Mr. Hunter,

I am the Graduate Center webmaster in the Publications department and I am also a Doctoral student here at The Graduate Center. As a staff member and student, I was very disappointed to see that there has been a switch to Styrofoam containers in the first floor café. Staff in the café told me that this is a permanent switch, not just a temporary measure. I have always respected Restaurant Associates' decision to use paper cups as I thought it reflected enlightened views regarding landfill and health effects of Styrofoam packaging. For example:

Health Effects: www.ejnet.org/plastics/polystyrene/health.html
Ecological effects/Landfill: www.epa.gov/grtlakes/seahome/housewaste/house/plastic.htm

I and other colleagues/members of the student body would like to know why this switch has been made. I will not be purchasing food from the cafeteria until a return to paper is implemented. I look forward to your response and hope that we can restore paper cups as soon as possible.

Regards,
Abigail Schoneboom

Charles Hunter responds, with a summer reading list!
Fri 4/22/2005 4:06 PM

Dear Abigail Schoneboom,

Thank you for your interest in foam cups. Just like you, Restaurant Associates cares about the environment. Hear (sic) are the top reasons we made a deliberate and thoughtful decision to go with foam, rather than paper cups.

· "Life cycle analyses suggest that foam holds many other advantages over paper disposable, Professor Martin Hocking, an associate professor chemistry at the University of Victoria, British Columbia has performed a study of foam and paper disposables. The results of his study were summarized succinctly in a Wall Street Journal article in 1991: Hocking's analysis...finds that the environmental impact from the chemicals and energy used in making paper cups, as well as the emissions from incinerating or burying paper cups, exceeds the impact of making and disposing of cups made of plastic foam."

· The insulating properties of foam cups keep beverages, whether hot or cold, at their proper serving temperature. It's not necessary to "double cup" or use a wasteful extra wrap to hold a hot beverage comfortably in a foam cup.

· The brand of foam cup we use is not made with chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) or any other ozone-depleting chemical.

· Plastic-coated paper cups pollute more, and use more energy than foam cups in their manufacturing process. Using two resource-intensive plastic-coated paper cups to hold one serving of hot coffee more than doubles the environmental impact of that drink, compared with the same drink in a single foam cup.

· Plastic-coated paper cups don't biodegrade in a meaningful timeframe in either a land fill or if littered. And plastic-coated paper cups are rarely, if ever recycled.

· Polystyrene foam foodservice products comprise a fraction of 1%, by both weight and volume, of our country's municipal solid waste that is land filled.

· The manufacture of foam cups and containers uses six times less the amount of raw materials, requires 30% less energy, and produces 46% less air pollution, 42% less water pollution, and 75% less pounds of industrial waste than an equivalent sized paper container.

· Foam cups do not impart any odor or taste to the beverage. They will not get soggy. There is no wax coating to flake into the drink.

· In cola comparison tests, after 15 minutes of elapsed time, cola in foam still had more carbonation than cola in a paper cup had at the end of only two minutes.

· The manufacture of foam cups require 30% less energy than the energy needed to make paper cups.

· Paper cups are neither made of recycled content nor themselves recycled.

· Degradable materials, not inert foam, can lead to dangerous methane gas release and ground water contamination.

Thank you for your comments. Please contact me directly if you have any other comments or concerns.

Sincerely,
Charles Hunter
Director, Food Service
Restaurant Associates at CUNY Graduate Center

Bibliography:
· "Foam cups damage environment less than paper cups" Wall Street Journal, February 1, 1991
· "Reusable and Disposable Cups: an Energy Based Evaluation", 18 Environmental Management 6 (1994)
· "Five Major Myths about Garbage and why they are Wrong" Smithsonian, July 1992
· Dart Container Company Website: http://www.dartcontainer.com/web/environ.nsf

More on Restaurant Associates

Dear Sirs and Madams:

I read with interest your article about the food service in the March issue. I wanted add some information to your thoughts about the service.

Many of my classmates and I believed that the tares (prices adjustments) or the ceramic plates was substantially off, and that the charges were too high. I tested the theory (with the help of a checkout professional) by pricing my wallet on an empty plastic container. Price: $1.25. I then tested the same wallet on an empty ceramic plate. Price: $2.00.

This was in January. I described the situation to the manager. He said he would call in an outside company to investigate and correct and problems. Human nature, and business, being what they are, I would bet he hasn't.

Best wishes for continued success with the publication.

Tom Piskula,
Economics

Thanks for the email, Tom. But who are these “Madams” to whom you refer? – Eds.

Does The Advocate lack integrity?

To the Editor:

I write out of concern for the journalistic integrity of The Advocate – or at least for the integrity of the Letters column. The February, 2005 issue of The Advocate contained a letter from Roberto Barnard (“First World Oafs?”) in reply to a previous article by Andrew Kennis. The letter took issue with aspects of the article, which is exactly what letters to the editor should do. But what followed were replies by Mr. Kennis and Layout Editor Spencer Sunshine.

I did not read the original article in question, so I have no opinion on the issues discussed by Mr. Barnard. What I do have an opinion about is the method whereby a dialogue was generated in the Letters column. Taking my cue from the New York Times, I have to say that the policy of printing editorial replies to letters is poor journalism—and just plain unfair. Writers of letters to the editor are supposed to get the last word. The decision to publish such letters should be the only say the editors get in the matter. Replies to such letters – even in legitimate defense of misconceptions about the original article – are unfair because the publication does not have to publish further statements by the letter writer.

The Advocate in general, and Messrs. Kennis and Sunshine in particular, should be able to handle criticism without getting the last word. If they can’t, they shouldn’t publish such criticism in the first place.

Sincerely,

David Hamilton Golland,
Graduate Center Delegate and Vice-Chair for Graduate Affairs
University Student Senate

While we appreciate your concerns, responding to Letters to the Editor is a standard journalistic practice utilized by many mainstream publications. While the New York Times may not do so, other periodicals such as the Village Voice certainly do - and if you think our responses are inappropriate, you should note the venom with which Voice writers frequently respond to letter writers. If our lack of “journalistic integrity” puts us in the same camp as the Village Voice, then I feel that The Advocate is in good company. - Spencer Sunshine, B.A. Journalism, Miami University, 1994.