Follies of the Sustainability Saga

By Jeremy Teicher | Thursday, November 9, 2006

On the official “Sustainability at Dartmouth” website, they lay out a very clear ultimatum: that humanity is consuming resources at a faster rate than the earth can create and, then, if people don’t respond soon, we will all die. Either that, or there might be mild climate change over the next few hundred years. Either way, it is up to us at Dartmouth to help reverse this terrible scourge of humanity upon Mother Earth.

Luckily, there is hope. The office of sustainability has a very clear mission to help “provide the knowledge, skills, and motivation that will integrate sustainability values and practices into the College,” starting with the dining facilities. How does this mission manifest itself? In a barrage of colorful trashcans near the exit to Home Plate. Instead of throwing away uneaten food, like at normal cafeterias, students are meant to separate the contents of their trays into different categories, dumping each “category” into a corresponding bin. The process is so annoyingly inconvenient, an ’09 girl said, that “it actually discourages me from going to Home Plate.”

Indeed, the amazing variety of cans is more impressive than the actual sustainability program. Actually, calling them all “trashcans” is a misnomer; only one is meant for trash, while another is meant for compost, and yet another is meant for plastics only. Ask a random student what belongs in trash versus compost and the most common response will be a shrug and a “who cares?” In all likelihood, the scores of waste bins took more resources to construct than they have saved.

One would think that clogging the exit and slowing down the dining process at Home Plate would be enough—but no. As most students have already noticed, it’s also difficult to get any meals to go. In an effort to reduce waste, the sustainability program decided to eliminate to-go containers from the Home Plate food counters. If people want their meals to go, they have to take the food from the plate it was served on and dump it into a container. This is absolutely absurd. Not only is it an inconvenience, but the plate (which was never intended to be used) must now be washed. There is a loophole in the system though: a student can still go to Food Court next door, grab a to-go box, and bring it to Home Plate. The only “resource” wasted in this process is the students’ valuable time. The whole to go process is, as an ’07 simply put it, “dumb and counterintuitive.” Home Plate also does not offer plastic utensils, the goal being to reduce waste and save money. “They think it’s going to stop people from wasting plastic forks, but really it’s not—people just walk over to Food Court or Pavilion,” a ’10 boy commented. The shortcomings of these policies at Home Plate are simply too blatantly idiotic to overlook.

Dartmouth Sustainability Coordinator Jim Merkel is also working on extending the madness to include a “sustainable dining kit,” consisting of re-useable silverware, a water bottle, a Tupperware food container, and a cloth napkin. The kit is being tested on a trial group of students—and the size of the “trial group” is growing at an alarming rate. In the October 24, 2006 issue of the Daily Dartmouth, Merkel was quoted saying: “…now we’ve expanded to 100, next 500, next the world.” However important Mr. Merkel believes sustainability to be to Dartmouth students, he’ll be in for a big surprise if he tries to force everyone to use the same silverware and napkin meal after meal. Even students who are generally supportive of sustainability react negatively to the thought of “dining kits.” When asked how she would react if she was told to use a “dining kit,” a ’10 girl immediately recoiled, squealing “Ew! That’s just gross.” There is no clearer way to describe sustainable dining kits. The very thought of it is repulsive.

Home Plate is just the beginning, if sustainability coordinator Jim Merkel gets his way. Merkel would like to see the “sustainability lifestyle” spread to other facets of student life. The sustainability website has a page of tips students can use to help reduce waste on campus, including “taking fewer showers” and reading a copy of the Daily D “that has already been read by someone else instead of getting a new one off the rack.” The absurdity of these “tips” is laughable—most students would rather maintain personal hygiene than save a few gallons of water. (Here’s an idea: the water wasted on the unused dishes at Home Plate could be recycled as shower water!)

Once Merkel determines that the sustainability experiment at Home Plate has been a “success,” similar changes to the other dining areas will appear. The determinants of a success remain a mystery to the Dartmouth community. In fact, according to the sustainability website, the changes to Home Plate have achieved nothing at all. That’s right: on the “Dartmouth Sustainability Accomplishments” page, there is a huge blank space with the text “check back soon.” The question is, just how long will Dartmouth students be subject to the sustainability inconvenience? How soon is soon? Unless the sustainability program produces tangible results, there is no reason to keep the program alive on campus.

Follies of the Sustainability Saga

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