As someone who greatly values how the community views measures taken to benefit the environment, I found the editorial article from the Sept 14th issue quite upsetting, not only because it was inaccurate, but because it implies that it’s okay not to take the composting program seriously. To begin, the claims made about time in the article are simply outrageous: I have yet to ever see anyone spend anything over 10 seconds at the compost station a far cry from the 30 second average used in the article.
It’s really a simple setup: we all know what’s recyclable (at least I would hope so by now, college students), and unless you brought in something that’s plastic 1-7, paper or metal, you don’t even have to worry about that station, as the dining halls don’t give you anything recyclable. Meats and plastic wrappers go in trash, and all other food goes in compost. Done. It may seem complicated the first couple run-throughs, but, coming from a freshman who eats every meal in the dining halls, you catch on pretty fast.
My hope is that the student body won’t see this new composting thing as a joke simply because one person wrote an article about it (here’s one person writing an article for it!). Considering all Mother Earth has given us, the least you could give back is a few seconds.
– Jake Dennie ‘17, of Indianapolis, Ind.