The most recent step taken by Sustainability Coordinator Jim Merkel -- replacing plastic to-go boxes with biodegradable cardboard ones at Food Court -- is arguably a more substantial, or at least noticeable, effort than his previous endeavors.
But the new boxes will not yield positive results without other changes. The cardboard is biodegradable, yet Dartmouth Dining Services does not have a sound plan to keep the boxes from finding a place in landfills alongside the plastic containers. Efforts to maintain successful compost bins floundered in the past, and DDS employees continue to throw the new cardboard boxes left on trays into the garbage.
Merkel's other ideas to decrease the environmental harm of take-out food are unrealistic. Instituting expensive Tupperware containers on the condition that students return them after each use would fail. If students steal cheap cutlery for their own personal use, they would certainly jump at the opportunity to hoard more valuable items. Though in a perfect world undergraduates would be more responsible, this proposal highlights Merkel's activist past and missing administrative background.
While DDS could surely be more efficient, Merkel should be tackling more obvious waste problems, beginning with the Greek system. The restrictions on kegs are a prime example. For every keg that is banned from a house, approximately 165 cans are used in its place. These cans are rarely recycled, as recycling practices are costly, time-consuming and poorly enforced within Greek houses. Merkel should push the College to abandon wasteful restrictions while at the same time creating incentives for Greeks to recycle. Although the argument to permit kegs has surfaced again and again, the College has never publicly addressed it.
The Greek system is only one possible starting point. Merkel could also examine excess heating in residential halls during the winter or wasted energy in numerous hallways that remain illuminated 24 hours a day.
