By Ashley-Anne Churchill

t Douglas College, we never stop
Ac consider all of the needless

waste we create because of being
preoccupied with juggling busy class
schedules, work schedules and our personal
lives and we don’t even consider stopping
to ask if there is a better, more sustainable
option. It’s not that we don’t care—most
of us are aware and do realize that we
have a waste problem— but we just
don’t have time to figure out all the

 

        

     

°  http://www.storyofstuff.com

Ie

can full of Tim Horton’s “to go” bags,
boxes, cups and containers. Even more
discouraging was seeing some of the same
people I begged for sleeves from, tossing
more in after eating their delicious baked
goods in the cafeteria. Everything bought
from the new White Spot or Tim Horton’s is
only available in disposable containers and
if you ask for “no bag” or your order “for
here” you are rarely listened to and you get
all of the needless packaging anyways.

   

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the garbage and chow down? I understand
not everyone would be willing to go to
the extreme of taking their empty plastic
containers, coffee cup lids and sleeves

home with them to put into their blue boxes.

The whole point of having it “to go” is for
people who are too busy or just don’t have
enough time to sit down in the cafeteria and
have a casual meal. If people are so busy
that they don’t even have enough time to sit
down and eat, they most likely won’t have

 

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20Friendly%20Utensils. pdf

 

food on the campus provide sustainable
options for packaging and for disposing

of the packaging as well as offering non-
disposable options for those eating in. It

is then our responsibility as consumers

to notice the bright blue bins beside the
garbage cans and put recyclables where they
belong: in recycle bins.

What else can you do with very little
effort on your part?

The coffee sleeve you slip around your
hot coffee cup is not only recyclable, it’s

complications of trying to be green; it “Everything bought from the new White Spot or Tim Horton’s is only available inyeysabie, you can slip it into your textbook
takes less effort to be wasteful than to qigposable containers and if you ask for “no bag” or your order “for here” you and use it as a bookmark until you need
be environmentally responsible. are rarely listened to and you get all of the needless packaging anyways.” _ the next caffeine fix and then just slip it on

 

My first semester here I spent
an hour a day in the cafeteria and
concourse, asking strangers finishing
off their coffee and getting ready to
toss their refuse into the trash if I could
have their sleeves. After furrowing of
eyebrows, confused looks and vague
tugging at shirtsleeves, I explained I want
the recyclable coffee cup sleeve they
were about to toss in the trash. I made
it a personal research project of mine to
see how many sleeves I could save from
being tossed in the garbage by the end of
the semester. I ended up with thousands of
sleeves and a new nickname.

Happy that I made a small impact by
making a few people aware of their needless
waste, I came back the next semester to
continue ploughing through my courses
for my environmental sciences degree.

I’m greeted by a sign advertising the new
Tim Horton’s in our cafeteria. At first I
was thrilled to have the coffee shop in our
cafeteria, until I saw an overfilling garbage

It’s great that the cafeteria has switched
away from the Styrofoam containers they
once used for everything take-out and
moved to the recyclable plastic containers
but there is a hitch: there is no way to
recycle those containers at the College. So
even though Styrofoam is nearly impossible
to recycle, our recyclable plastic “to
go” containers will be transported over
200 kilometres and end up sitting in the
overflowing Cache Creek landfill where
they may never decompose; as landfills are
designed to slow down, and ideally, stop
decomposition. On that note, if we throw
the new biodegradable coffee cups in the
garbage, they will not biodegrade either. Is
this reasonable for one cup of coffee that
we down in five minutes during our mad
rush to get to our next class? How about for
the 30 seconds our doughnut or muffin sits
in the wax-coated bag before we toss it in

enough time to even consider taking home
their recyclables, let alone separating their
wastes into non-recyclables and recyclables
and trying to solve the puzzle of which
recyclables actually can go into the recycle
bins and which ones can’t.

If we want to successfully reduce our
impact on the environment, we need to
make recycling as simple as tossing waste
in the trash. We need at least one recycle
bin for each type of recyclable and for each
garbage can in the college, especially in
the cafeteria, and have it so all recyclables
can go into those bins. Even better, make
them all-in-one “green” recycle bins where
everything recyclable can go into one bin,
just like the waste bins. It should be the
responsibility of the College to provide
a sustainable way of disposing of the
packaging that they sell their food in or
demand that the merchants that sell the

your new coffee cup before running off to

class. Even better, bring your own travel

mug, which will also save you a little bit
of cash on your next java run.

One of the simplest options is to bring
your own lunch with you from home. Also,
if you do eat in the cafeteria, insist on as
little packaging as possible if you’re only
going to use it for 30 seconds or so before
tossing it in the garbage. If you’re keen to
be green, but with your hectic schedule, you
find it nearly impossible to avoid disposable
containers, take your plastic coffee cup lid
and “to go” containers home with you and
slip them in your blue box until Douglas
College gets green bins for all of your
recyclables.

One of the best things you can do is
open your eyes and be aware of the amount
of needless waste you create and then
spread the word!

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