At the beginning of the semester, Lincoln Avenue Residence Hall became the second hall on campus to eliminate the use of trays in the dining hall.

When it opened in the fall, the new dining hall at Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Hall was the first to remove its trays in a project University Housing said would conserve energy, water and food.

“LAR was a good next hall (for the project) because it’s fairly self-contained,” said Kirsten Ruby, assistant director of housing for marketing said.

In the LAR dining hall, the food lines and seating are confined to one general area, which makes it easier than other halls to remove trays without disrupting students’ routines.

However, some students are bothered by the change and see it as more trouble than it’s worth.

“It’s really inconvenient,” said Hajera Azam, freshman in DGS. “You have to take like 10 trips for each meal.”

Ruby said removing the trays has numerous benefits and will make the dining halls, and the campus, more sustainable. Each day, a dining hall the size of LAR uses 516 gallons of water and 2.2 pounds of dish detergent. Since trays were eliminated fairly recently, it is unknown how much water and detergent they will save.

In addition to this, Ruby said research at other schools that have gone trayless shows students are more selective about what they put on their plates, and this makes less waste and allows the dining hall staff to prepare less food.

“I don’t think most students were brought up at home eating off of plastic trays,” Ruby said. “So it doesn’t make sense that they do that here.”

She said the trayless PAR is going very well, and she sees students there are being careful about examining their options before deciding what food to take.

“It’s hard to carry everything,” said Ali Nork, freshman in Education. “But I can deal with it. I just got used to the trays.”

Ruby said most students living in the residence halls are very conscious about sustainability and seem willing to adjust to dining without trays.

“I think any changes just take a little time to adjust to,” Ruby said.