News
Students brainstormed how to make Dartmouth's Greek system more environmentally efficient Thursday night at a discussion led by College sustainability coordinator Jim Merkel at Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority, but Merkel himself knew little about Dartmouth's Greek system and did not suggest any of his own solutions.
After Merkel asked the audience if an infrastructure aimed to reduce waste exists within the Greek system, Cayelan Carey '06, recycling and scholarship chair for Theta, suggested that each Greek house should have a "point person" in charge of forming a recycling network within the Greek system.
The waste issues that students labeled as the causes of Greek houses' sustainability woes included the mass consumption of non-recyclable disposable cups and the lack of recycling of beer cans.
Toby Lunt '08, a member of Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity, said that the College could help Greek houses recycle by providing each with a second dumpster for cans only.
Popular ideas included offering incentives to Greek houses to cut back on waste and pushing the College or Stinson's convenience store to order recyclable cups in bulk to cut back on their high cost.
Merkel spent the majority of his talk, entitled "How sustainable are the Greeks?", explaining the concept of sustainability as it applies to the world and to Americans, posting slides with they key concepts of sustainability and with shocking statistics about American consumption.
The sustainability coordinator spent little time talking about the threats that the Greek system poses to the environment and did not suggest any steps that Greek organizations could take toward environmental consciousness.
Merkel, who came to the College in June, admitted to knowing little about fraternities and sororities on campus.
