Environmental Sustainability Issues are Everywhere: A Pilot Program for Undergraduate, Interdisciplinary Research and Problem Solving

The focus on waste disposal reaches into environmental sustainability. One specific focus is food loss and food waste, which are barriers to establishing a circular economy and environmental sustainability. Most estimations indicate that approximately one-third of all the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted (Buzby et al., 2014). This is problematic because food that is wasted contributes to food insecurity and landfilled food waste impacts the environment with contribution to Green House Gas emissions (Girotti, Alibardi, & Cossu, 2015). In the United States, where 40% of food is wasted, there is a growing movement to prevent food waste, address food insecurity and ensure that nutrients are cycled back into our soils and food production systems (United States Department of Agriculture, 2017).

New England is at the forefront of these efforts with states in the region implementing graduated organic waste landfill bans, establishing food waste reduction targets, making significant investments in food distribution, and investing in composting and digestion technologies (MA 310 CMR 19.000 Commercial Organic Ban, n.d.). However, in Maine, food recovery, waste reduction, and composting efforts have fallen short of targets despite stakeholder support (Isenhour et al., 2016). To find solutions, research widely suggests the need to combine efforts across disciplines to motivate behavioral changes (Chadhary, Gustafson, & Mathys, 2018; Wiese & Sherman, 2011). One discipline included in the discussion of waste is nursing.

Although residential data concerning food waste can be quantified, there is a paucity in industry specific data (Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), 2017). Many organizations have yet to be recognized for their large and damaging footprints in producing waste. As a result, their importance as possible targets for interventions has gone unrecognized. Like many industries, health care organizations are just such entities. They have largely been absent from the sustainability conversations (CEC, 2017). The healthcare industry contributes to food waste with 71% of all reported solid waste (including food waste) being generated by hospitals (United Nations Environmental Program [UNEP], 2012). Yet hospitals bring to the forefront the conundrums with sustainability when attempts are made to balance several goals such as the goal of safety and that of sustainability. Examining hospital food waste practices is only one example of the need to invest studies of sustainability with a clear understanding of the context in which particular behaviors take place.

To help prepare workforce ready graduates (including nursing students) and engage undergraduate students in research involving environmental sustainability, one Land-Grant university in the Northeastern United States conducted an internally funded pilot program (Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Research Collaborative Program [IURCP]) to develop an interdisciplinary, participatory, problem-solving undergraduate experience for students concerned with food waste, a circular food economy and environmental sustainability. Our goal was to adopt systems thinking, drawing on researchers with different bodies of knowledge, to converge on answers to the larger materials management questions and ultimately transform the knowledge into action. The team of undergraduate students from 5 key disciplines (nursing, environmental engineering, anthropology, food science, and economics) joined the Materials Management (MM) team to collect and analyze data to better understand food and waste systems and identify opportunities for improvement. Students: (a) engaged in discipline specific, mentor-directed research activities on food diversion, waste recovery and treatment (i.e., hospital waste production, community production and preservation techniques, donation, digestion of waste); (b) participated as members in MM meetings to learn about environmental sustainability within a successful university interdisciplinary team; (c) served on an undergraduate interdisciplinary team to work as a team to analyze waste management, research findings, and possible solutions for food recovery, food reuse, waste reduction and energy recovery.

This interdisciplinary program was well received by undergraduate participants as they learned collaboration skills within a mentor-directed, highly diverse interdisciplinary team. Students conducted literature reviews, wrote research and internal review board proposals, attended weekly collaboration meetings, attended sustainability conferences, prepared and presented an interdisciplinary poster, and will submit an interdisciplinary article for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.