Views On Vassar | College needs to be more environmentally conscious

Tendai Musakwa Opinions Editor

Vassar students are intelligent. The cream of their high school classes, they are chosen from all over the world for their reasoning abilities and their exceptional motivation for the betterment of humanity. This is why I’m surprised when I see stoves carelessly left on in dorm kitchens and taps left running in bathrooms. The fact is that Vassar students are not as environmentally aware as one would expect rational young adults to be. The entire College community needs to work harder to make Vassar an energy-and resource-efficient campus.

Firstly, the indiscriminate use of paper and plastic in the College’s dining locations is not environmentally friendly. Despite the fact that plastic tumblers are available, students still use disposable paper cups for beverages. In fact, the presence of paper cups when alternatives exist leads me to wonder whether the College is actually striving to be greener. Paper napkins at The Retreat and the All-Campus Dining Center (ACDC) are freely available for the community to waste, which they do, as evidenced by the trays piled high with paper napkins that can be seen on the ACDC scullery conveyer. Furthermore, despite the fact that the Vassar Greens handed out plastic containers to all students who wanted them, disposable “to-go” boxes are still available in the canteen and these are carelessly used by many students. Change is needed in the College dining locations to stop this deplorable condition.

One of the ways in which this could be done would be to eliminate disposable plastic and paper containers from Campus Dining locations; students can always utilize re-usable alternatives. In addition, paper napkins in Campus Dining locations should be sold to students to make students more conscious of the amount of paper they use.

The violation of Mother Nature at Vassar does not stop there. In dormitories, the heating is always on, day or night, regardless of whether rooms are occupied. For unfathomable reasons, there is even heating in foyers. Furthermore, dorm residents leave lights on in their rooms all day long, and to make matters worse, the College-installed dim lighting in the dormitories, forces students to buy more lights, consuming even more energy.

There is no method currently in place to regulate the amount of electricity which students use in their dorm rooms. If I choose to leave all of my lights, my computer, TV, coffee pot and lava lamp on, I can do so and no measure is in place to regulate such actions, which makes me think that the College does not really care about this. Electric meters should be used to regulate the amount of electricity students use and if they use above a certain amount, they should pay. Additionally, heating in all dormitories should be occupant-controlled to enable students to turn off the heating whenever they are not in their rooms.

The fact that computers in the many clusters around campus are always kept on is yet another example of the waste of electricity in the College. Granted, the computers do go into the low-power utilizing stand-by mode after 30 minutes, but this is still a waste, considering that people can always shut down computers when they are not using them. If everyone were to make a conscious decision to shut down computers whenever they finish using one, then Vassar would use much less electricity.

The improvident use of resources extends to other facets of the College as well. The College bookstore uses plastic bags, which, granted, are made from recycled plastic, but are still an unnecessary misuse of resources. Vassar is a compact campus, with most students living within walking distance of the bookstore; plastic bags should not be necessary. If students are carrying heavy loads, backpacks can always be used for carrying purchases. Students should make an effort to use as little plastic as possible by using fabric bags or other means of carrying purchases, which are much more environmentally friendly than wasting hundreds of plastic bags.

Then comes the issue of paper towels in our bathrooms. The reason we are still using paper towels eludes me. Despite being a ridiculous waste of non-recyclable paper, using paper towels is wholly unnecessary, as students could use their own towels in dorm bathrooms and the College could install hand dryers in other locations. We must become more conscious of how our living affects nature and act accordingly to reduce the waste of resources.

Vassar needs to become more environmentally conscious in order to do its part in ensuring a sustainable future. This requires a concerted effort by the administration and the College community to make Vassar a greener college. We need to protect our environment in order to protect our heritage of having a habitable planet.