Youprobably noticed something unusual in front of Collis yesterday: piles of trash abounding on the front lawn. As you hurried off to class, you might have stopped to ask yourself, "Is this necessary?"
Is it necessary to purchase -- for approximately three months of student residence -- 265,500 paper plates and trays, 385,500 cups, 158,000 bowls, as well as plastic eating-ware, their complimentary wrappers and 1,800 milk and beverage cartons? Is it necessary for Dartmouth Dining Services to spend $83,000 per year on disposable containers and utensils -- which contribute 50 tons of trash to the Lebanon landfill -- in addition to the $35,000 per year spent on trash disposal by Collis alone? Is it necessary to live up to the stereotype of American fast-food, throwaway culture, disregarding the impact of human-generated waste on our environment?
Because of the irresponsible attitudes of the Dartmouth community -- administrators, DDS coordinators, and students -- this outrageous and unfortunate consumption of disposables and its subsequent dumping into the Upper Valley's waste stream is necessary.
On the part of the administration, not enough money is allocated to building improvement funds to cover the initial capital investment required for dishwashing facilities -- an investment which not only makes sense environmentally, but one which would, in the long run, pay for itself.
Inadequate planning by designers of Collis and the Hop and managerial decisions made by Dining Services also perpetuate the use of massive amounts of disposable containers and eatingware.
Also at fault is our irresponsibility as students: we are unwilling to consider the consequences of our own actions. Dining Services loses $25,000 to $30,000 annually (about the price of tuition, room, and board) in stolen china, glass and flatware. These are losses that we as students inevitably pay for in the inflated prices of our food.
Sure, it's easy to accidentally walk off with a steel spoon instead of a plastic one, to forget to ask for an entree in a "to-go" container or to bring your tray out to the Green and leave it sitting there for someone else to clean up after you. It's even easier to say, "Oh well, the bill gets sent home to my parents. Why should I worry about spending an extra 10 cents for a bagel?"
But is it really so difficult to put in that little bit of extra effort to respect our campus dining halls, our community and our environment?
Until we as students show that we are mature enough to respect our eating facilities, Collis and the Hop will still use disposables, and DDS prices will continue to go up. At the current rates of theft, Collis would lose money by converting to reusables despite the ever-increasing price of paper and plastic goods. For this reason, the administration can easily refuse to come up with the capital needed to install a dishwashing facility.
Individual responsibility is a foundation of Dartmouth College, which is exemplified by the rights and freedom given to us as students to make our own choices as mature and respected adults. The Student Handbook states on page 159: "The integrity of the Dartmouth community depends upon students' and student organizations' acceptance of individual responsibility and respect for the rights of others;" Dartmouth, as an institution of higher learning "seeks ... to assist students to develop critical thinking, integrity, judgment, appreciation of cultural ethnic diversity, as well as social and ethical values necessary for community life."
The careless attitudes of both students and administrators regarding the inordinate amount of waste generated by our dining halls is in blatant disregard to this fundamental concept of individual responsibility to our community and to our environment. I would like to think that Dartmouth, as a distinguished liberal arts college, could do better than to promote and breed the self-centered, apathetic, throw-away attitude of American culture, of which the trash lying in front of Collis yesterday was only one example.
As students, administrators, DDS directors and members of a community, I hope that we will consider the far-reaching consequences of our actions rather than continuing to produce unnecessary waste in our dining halls. The use of disposables is the easy way out, and one which avoids addressing the problems of our own priorities.
