I recently spent 60 minutes in Ram’s Head Food Court watching students pushing plates, plastic bottles and plastic containers into the trash. I recorded customers at check-out and the products that were being purchased or used. In the time I spent observing the checkout lines, 130 plastic bottles were purchased, 46 Styrofoam plates with plastic lids, 31 plastic bowls with lids were used to carry food and 61 plastic bags were taken to carry these items.
In order to make sense of these numbers, I took the totals I had observed and calculated a daily average of products used based on Ram’s Head Food Court hours of operation and the length of the semester. I came across a startling truth. I found that in any given semester, approximately 140,000 plastic bottles are purchased and 50,000 Styrofoam plates, 34,000 plastic bowls and 67,000 plastic bags are used from Ram’s Head alone.
Administration at West Chester University may see these products as a cheap and efficient way to get customers in and out easily. Additionally, it may seem that all of these products are convenient for on-the-go college students or professors, but in the long run these products have detrimental effects on the environment as well as human health. There are various products that are much more beneficial for the environment, people’s health and West Chester University’s pockets.
Most of the products used by the university dining services cannot be recycled. For the ones that can be, most are not properly disposed of; they will not be reused, but will rather end up in a land fill.
Throughout any given day in Ram’s Head Food Court, hundreds of Styrofoam plates with plastic lids are used. Unfortunately, Styrofoam, the American term for polystyrene, is both non-biodegradable and non-recyclable. According to the sustainability department of Washington University in St. Louis, it can take at least 500 years for Styrofoam to decompose in a landfill. This means that all the Styrofoam ever created has not yet begun to decompose.
Additionally, Styrofoam can have negative effects on health. In the ABC News article, “6 Sneaky Cancer Culprits,” Styrofoam made fourth on the list. Both Styrene and Benzene are chemicals in Styrofoam products that can leak into foods and drinks. Consuming the chemical can lead to the damage of DNA, leading to cancer.
Along with Styrofoam, according to the fact sheets of ReuseIt, a company specializing in supplying reusable products, plastic bags take at least 500 years, if not longer to decompose in a landfill. Additionally, scientists estimate at least 10 percent of all plastic products will end up in the ocean. For every square mile of ocean – approximately 46,000 pieces of plastic are floating in it.
However, the difference between Styrofoam and plastic is that plastic can be recycled. Most devastating is the fact that less than three percent of all plastic bags are ever recycled. This is a startling amount considering over one-trillion plastic bags are manufactured annually.
Even with all of the horrifying reality of our wasteful habits, we cannot be discouraged from a solution to the problem. Despite the lack of a “catch all” type of solution, there are steps the university can take to decrease its negative environmental impact.
Administrators must ensure that the proper receptacles are available for all products that are able to be recycled. This can ensure that, instead of ending up in a landfill for hundreds of years, reusable products will be reused.
An important step that WCU can take is removing plastic bags completely from Ram’s Head Food Court. This may take time but can begin by charging a small fee for bags as opposed to giving them away for free.
In 2001, Ireland implemented this type of plastic tax. Officials acknowledged that people would still occasionally use plastic bags, but the tax would discourage the careless use of plastic bags on a daily basis by charging a small fee at checkout. After implementing the tax, the usage of plastic bags dropped by about 94 percent overall.
The most crucial step to ensuring the amount of non-biodegradable waste on campus is cut down drastically is for WCU to create a program that utilizes reusable containers throughout all dining services on campus.
Currently in Lawrence Dining Hall, students can pay a one-time $5 fee to use a reusable container to-go. Students then return the container the next time they come and it is replaced with a clean one.
Washing containers is much less environmentally harmful than adding tons of waste to a landfill that will take centuries to decompose. There is no reason why a similar program promoting reusable containers should not or could not be utilized within Ram’s Head Food Court.
Students should be able to rely on their university as a role model for environmental sustainability. By being more environmentally conscious, WCU can ensure a better tomorrow for students, the community and the world.
Kaitlin Brinker is a second-year premajor student. She can be reached at KB835149@wcupa.edu.