Sustainability Partners with Greek Life

A sink, a dap-up, a chug of stale beer— a typical pong game encompasses such rituals, but where does the cup go? Typically in a trash can, full with goodies: beer, damp paper towels, stale pizza, and even vomit, all of which “contaminate” the bag, making it unrecyclable. This norm amongst the Greek houses, not only in the bins in the basement but also across the house, has made it difficult to simultaneously party and be sustainable. This predicament, spanning decades, is now a central issue the Dartmouth Sustainability Office wants to address. Utilizing the incentive of a thousand dollars in cold, hard cash, the department has initiated a competition between the Greek Houses on who can recycle the most — and, additionally, in the most environmentally-friendly way. Launched in week five of the term, the “Go Green, Go Greek!” Recycling games have begun.

Transitioning from throwing all waste in the trash into distinguishing recyclable items is quite a challenge, even more so than it seems. Per term, the average Dartmouth fraternity consumes 114,000 plastic cups, 22,000 cans of Keystones, and the personal lives of new members. With such insurmountable numbers, the odds are stacked against the Houses. However, optimistically, many greek houses have committed to the cause. Those competing for the cash prize and the glory of being the most “green” (a glorious status in the eyes of those who still turn off their lights on Earth Day) include Alpha Phi, Alpha Theta, Alpha Xi Delta, Beta Alpha Omega, Bones Gate, Chi Gamma Epsilon, Epsilon Kappa Theta, Kappa Delta Epsilon, Sigma Delta, Theta Delta Chi, and Kappa Kappa Kappa.

Greek houses aren’t just machines though. The complications stretch far beyond the patronizing rhetoric of simply separating items in blue and green bins, a lesson that every second-grader is knowledgeable of. The greek houses don’t just have to account for items; they have to account for the hundreds of people that flow in each weekend still experimenting with their limits and, many times, exceeding them. Vomit continues to be a prevalent contaminant and nuisance to the greek houses’ endeavors. It’s difficult to account for every person spewing their guts onto the houses’ chance at some sustainable cash, whether it be from empty stomachs or general lightweightedness. Imagine the position of a brother or sister attempting to sort through the mess. In fact, an anonymous brother asked every Safety and Security employee he came into contact with if they would sort the fraternity’s trash to separate recyclable and non-recyclable items for a thousand dollars, the equivalent of the first place prize. Each employee refused — and reasonably so. Additionally, it seems that awareness is low among common basement-goers, who are usually a little too distracted to concern themselves with whether or not they are being environmentally friendly or not. The cans of beer littered throughout campus indicate such.

There are still some methods the Greek houses can utilize in order to improve their standings though. The Sustainability Office has been consistently holding educational sessions with the various houses to teach them about the nuances of recycling. For example, the majority of plastic cups found in the houses are made of polystyrene, plastic #6, a pollutant that accounts for about 35% of US landfills and does not degrade over time. Even if cups don’t end up in the recycling bins, a transition to a more sustainable cup material could have resounding benefits for the environment. The department is currently in the process of seeking better materials for the houses to use, seeking partners such as Stinson’s to find a more environmentally-friendly cup. On the other hand, beer cans are surprisingly efficient in terms of recycling and offer an alternative to the mass amounts of plastic cups wasted per term, although the monetary and social costs of using less cups and more cans may present its own problems. Houses can also look into using kegs, a large-scale sustainable alternative. Keggy is our unofficial mascot after all.

While these initiatives may still be subsumed by the complications mentioned, not all bins are in the basement. The Sustainability Office emphasizes that this is an initiative for the house as a whole, not just the party scene. Even if they can’t resolve contamination in some cans, the floors that are mainly inhabited by brothers and sisters also accumulate waste that can be recycled: bottles, old papers, plastic forks, tuk tuk containers, and more. Making changes to the way the houses confront these environmental challenges based on the department’s lessons and guidelines could allow a winner to reap additional benefits. Although the largest cash prize goes to the house that turns in the most uncontaminated bags of recycled material, a secondary prize of $600 will go to the house (the first and second prizes being mutually exclusive) with the highest efficiency, based on both the number of uncontaminated bags turned in along with the ratio of uncontaminated bags to total bags.

The results of the competition and the educational sessions still remain ambiguous. Initially, the sororities were on track to win both prizes, with even the highest-standing fraternity remaining far behind. However, the fraternities have made a comeback and are working their way to first place because of improvements in preventing contamination, which may be correlated to the Sustainability Office’s efforts. As humorous as the idea of drinking becoming sustainable is, these efforts could have huge ramifications for the perception of Greek life and the campus writ large. This push for changing the status quo could shine a positive light on the houses that have developed a, at sometimes unfairly, problematic reputation.

While this event is only a half-term event, the Sustainability Office hopes that the competition will spur leaders within the Greek community to act upon their power in promoting environmentalism in a campus surrounded and defined by nature. A sustainable social life is possible, and the Greek houses have the potential to prove it. Uncontrollable freshmen may continue to be an inconvenience; complex information about plastic materials unbeknownst to the public may still be prevalent. Nevertheless, a step in the right direction is still right. The results of this initiative shall come to fruition at the end of the winter term competition, and the years to come.