"Blame it on the alcohol" this is the refrain of a popular Jamie Foxx song, and, dare I say, something Dartmouth students do far too often. We've all seen someone do something stupid while drunk. Heck, most of us have been there.
The real question is: are we incapable of being responsible while drunk, or is it that we're so eager for an escape from our everyday responsibilities that drunkenness becomes a convenient excuse?
Obviously there are things that may never leave the realm of "well, I was drunk." Questionable sexual exploits, general rudeness and completely forgetting what happened last night are consistently blamed away. But many of us probably go into an evening of partying expecting to possibly do something of the sort. The troublesome issue that I see is that we readily abandon principles that we all profess to strongly believe in while sober, just because we're drunk. Let's look at a prime example recycling.
The environment is quite the niche issue here on campus: many of us profess to believe in man-made climate change, we are constantly subjected to a barrage of reminders to recycle and reduce energy consumption, and we can hardly go anywhere on campus without finding a recycling receptacle of some sort. Of course, one of the few places recycling rarely happens is in the basements of Greek houses. Now, there are a select few houses which do make an effort to recycle, most notably Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority and my own Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, but most houses seem content with just throwing away the endless stream of cups and cans that are used on an average night.
Now, I don't write this to condemn the Greek houses. As a member of SAE, I can vouch for how difficult it is to recycle in a basement that you can never completely control. After all, on most nights the members of a particular house make up less than 50 percent of the people present if the entire membership of a house recycled, there would still be a lot of waste. Even beyond the act of recycling, it is hard to protect the recycling containers from non-recyclable items, like excess beer and vomit. After all, if just one person boots in a recycling bin, everything in it needs to be thrown out. Similarly, it's hard to expect members to sort through a pile of yesterday's beer cans and cups to pull out the non-recyclables. Essentially, basement recycling depends on two things: participation and preventing the receptacle from getting soiled.
The catch is that both of these things are almost brainlessly simple. Usually, most of us look for a recycling bin to toss an empty bottle in. However, for some reason, when we enter a basement our brains shut off to the point where we don't even consider recycling. I'm sure most people would like to just blame the alcohol, but that's a rather untenable position. It doesn't really require a high level of thought process to take 10 seconds out of your pong game to drop a cup in a recycling bin rather than to just toss it on the floor or in the trash can. Yes, the trash can is slightly closer. That's part of my point.
I understand that some people never recycle and are therefore not in the habit of doing so, but those aren't the people who really bother me I realize that changing these people's minds will take a lot of work. But for those who recycle every day many of whom allow a concern for the environment to affect their vote, and some of whom actively advocate for other to reduce, reuse and recycle to not be willing to take the simple, easy steps necessary to recycle while drunk seems unjustifiable. At the very least, it's not asking much to refrain from soiling the recycling implements in place in Greek houses across campus.
Let's stop waiting for flawed alcohol policies to save our guilt with kegs. Don't throw trash into or boot on recycling bins just because they're in a basement. Take the combined minute per pong game and walk over to that recycling bin with your cups and cans. It's easier to make a difference than you might think. After all, even Food Court containers and pizza boxes are recyclable these days. We may not save the world, but at least we won't be hypocrites.
