The Buttery’s lasagne dish is set to be meat-free in January and February, as part of the College’s sustainable lunch campaign.
The lasagne dish, one of the Buttery’s most frequent lunch options, received the highest number of votes in an online poll on which lunch dish should be converted to a vegetarian option for the first two months of 2019.
Trinity students and staff voted on whether they would rather see a vegetarian lasagne, vegetarian stirfry, or chili “sin” carne in the Buttery. The new vegetarian lasagne is to replace meat with red lentils.
The Buttery serves an average of 680 meals per day. The change to a vegetarian lasagne is expected to reduce College’s carbon footprint by 4.55kg of carbon dioxide for every lasagne dish consumed.
In June, the Buttery replaced plastic straws with compostable straws in a bid to become more sustainable. The change followed a survey which saw staff and students vote on which sustainability measures College should prioritise in campus food outlets.
Trinity recently announced a new sustainability fund, with an aim to “enable initiatives to improve campus sustainability and more sustainable behaviours”. The fund was established by the Provost’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability and Low Carbon Living.
Since 2012, Trinity has sent no municipal waste direct to landfill, instead converting most non-recyclable waste into Refuse Derived Fuel. Trinity received the award of Green Flag campus status in 2013, becoming the first university in a capital city globally to receive the flag.
