When I was young, my parents always made sure to recycle everything they could.  The newspaper, water bottles, milk jugs, cans, ink cartridges.  You name it, and my parents tried their best to recycle.  I never quite understood why this was so important.  At first, I thought they wanted to recycle cans or bottles to get their five cent deposit back, but as I grew older, I learned why it was so important recycle.  Plastic is frequently used for such a short time by humans, but it can take some plastics up to 1,000 years to decompose.  Plastic pollution is slowly killing 100,000 marine animals each year.  As a result of all this, I began reducing my waste by using a reusable water bottle.  I always made sure to recycle anything I could.  Now that I’ve gotten to college, I’ve learned that I have done my part to recycle and reduce my personal waste.  It’s now my turn to educate others on the importance of recycling, just as my parents did years ago.

Dickinson college and its students should share a similar vision in reducing waste.  As the climate is changing, we must address all issues pertaining to energy usage and carbon emissions.  Producing disposable plastic products emits a lot of carbon, and the efforts to recycle such products does as well.  The Dickinson community does a relatively good job at its recycling efforts and waste reduction efforts, but more can be done.  Composting efforts have improved and waste has generally decreased over the years.  Now it’s time to take it one step further and fix a problem Dickinson has with to go dining options.