Burton Dining Hall

In 2019, Burton became Virginia’s first private college cafeteria with a Level One Certified Green Restaurant® designation on campus. It was recertified and leveled up to a 3-star Green Restaurant in 2024. Here are some of the earth-friendly features of the cafeteria: 

1. The kitchen has Energy Star-rated cooking appliances that are energy efficient.
2. The dining hall serves hundreds of students each week. That’s a lot of plates to clean! Luckily, our dish-washing machine has water-saving features that reduce our environmental impact.
3. In 2018, the University of Lynchburg began a composting program to reduce food waste. Pre-consumer waste (vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, eggshells, etc.) is collected by the local nonprofit Lynchburg Grows and is used for organic compost. Post-consumer waste (vegetable scraps, dairy, meat, leftover served food, etc.) is collected by Royal Oak Farms, an organic waste recycling company in Virginia.
4. Environmentally friendly cleaning fluids are used whenever possible.
5. Burton is styrofoam-free. In the Fall 2018 semester, the dining hall replaced styrofoam plates and cups with paper products that can be composted or recycled.
6. Excess food is donated to Lynchburg Daily Bread, a local nonprofit that serves free lunch every day to those in need.
7. Eliminated trays in Burton, which reduced waste per meal by two-thirds, and added smaller plate sizes, which helped customers reduce how much food they could potentially waste.
8. Burton features plant-based (vegetarian and vegan) food options for every meal of the day. The menu also features a variety of locally sourced foods.
9. Reusable to-go containers are available for students and employees to purchase to take home a meal, which helps eliminate food waste. Everyone can bring their containers back to the dining hall to be cleaned and sanitized and are given a token to pick up a new one.