La Trobe University, Bundoora campus – case study

Background and purpose

In May 2022, Sustainability Victoria hosted the Choose to Reuse Masterclass, where University of Melbourne showcased its reusable crockery program, and Sustainability Victoria also announced the first round of the Reuse Pilot Fund.

The sustainability team at La Trobe University (LTU) attended the masterclass and applied for the Reuse Pilot Fund grant. They were given $64,000 to launch its Reusable Revolution pilot, which ran between February and May 2023.

The program is a reuse crockery program at its Melbourne (Bundoora) Campus, co-funded by the university.

For this pilot, La Trobe collaborated with 3 food retailers located around the Agora food court at Bundoora campus by offering them reusable plates, bowls, cups and cutlery. La Trobe worked with them to collect data to measure overall impact and inform other businesses about the feasibility of reuse systems.

Customers’ meals were served on reusable plates/bowls/cups and with reusable cutlery. When they’d finished, customers returned these items to the collection stations in the Agora food court. The cleaners then took these items to the dishwashing hub where they were cleaned and recirculated.

The process

The campus sustainability coordinator, Xiao Yan Li, worked with retailers to ensure the sizes and the design of the reusable items were suitable to the foods they served. The sustainability team also worked with various internal and external stakeholders to identify suitable spots for collection points, designing signage and other communication materials and implementing processes to capture data. This involved monitoring the number of reusables taken at point of sale, and counting the number at the dishwashing hub.

La Trobe University (LTU) also supplied posters and stickers to the retailers to promote this program and help them communicate with customers. La Trobe used its existing sustainability website to promote the Reusable Revolution, and it was promoted via the university’s intranet.

The sustainability team hosted a stall during Orientation Week, in the Agora Centre, to promote the initiative with incentives such as prizes and food vouchers for following the Sustainability La Trobe Facebook page or signing up to the sustainability mailing list.

During week 11 and 12 of the pilot program, a Reusable Revolution survey gathered qualitative data about the program from the LTU community.

Ongoing engagement has been via La Trobe University’s Tik Tok and Instagram pages and monthly articles in staff and student communications channels.

The sustainability team engaged the participating on-campus retailers via a project manager and instant messaging to troubleshoot issues and get other feedback.

Challenges

Retailers were concerned about the size and design of the reusable crockery items. Xiao Yan worked with retailers and provided them with samples before buying the reusables in bulk.

To safely transport reusable items between collection points and the dishwashing hub, Xiao Yan consulted various other project partners and made sure the design of the collection station and trolley was suitable.

Communicating with customers and the university community was an issue despite the team using internal email and intranet channels, and posters at point-of-sale, on the food court doors and at the dishwash hub. A more comprehensive communications plan is needed, and new channels outside of the intranet and staff and student newsletters need to be identified if the program is to succeed and grow into the future.

The impact

The program saved:

• a total of 15,000 single use plastic items from being used
• over 7,800 pieces of single-use items from going to landfill by using reusable crockery
• over 8.8 kgs of plastics, 60 kgs of timber and reduced 99.29 kg of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere by using reusable cups.

More than 320 loads of dishes and over 4,400 pieces of crockery were washed at the dishwash hub.

At the start of the program 3 out of 12 of the campus retailers took part (some retailers already had a reusable scheme in place). By the end 8 in total had joined the pilot.

The pilot will continue for at least one year, until May 2024, and the team has plans to expand it across the Bundoora campus.