Sunday, March 14, 2010

Do One Thing

Recently the college campus announced an initiative/green campaign they're calling "Do One Thing" (DOT). The idea is to think of one thing that you can do that will have a positive impact on resource consumption and/or the environment in general.

I am happy to say that I am in keeping with policy during my stay on campus. In fact, I've recently come to realize that I enjoy taking long, hot showers and have been doing that for the past couple weeks and will probably do similarly for the rest of my time on campus.

Now, I know what you're thinking, or at least something close to that. "But isn't that something that goes against the policy? It's an activity that's wasteful of our limited reserves of usable fresh water!" you're probably thinking to yourself -- or, if you're particularly livid about this concept, shouting at your computer. This is why I'm happy to announce that my DOT is recycling cans and bottles of soda, which I've been doing since before this campaign began; since it was initiated I've been looking for extraneous conservation efforts that I can phase out.

My next task will be to wash all my laundry twice consecutively, which, in addition to using more water and heat, also keeps some of the few washers and dryers for this housing complex occupied for longer, so other people may have to wait about 80 minutes extra to do their own laundry. We'll also start phasing out keeping leftovers and instead start getting rid of them the same day.

Now, you may think this entirely against the spirit of the policy. To this, I say that one of my roommates went to high school at Philips-Exeter, where they had a recycling competition for things like soda cans. He and his floormates would buy and consume extra soda in order to make sure that they took the top of the list for the recycling, thereby subverting the entire purpose of the recycling competition in the first place.

My point is that we take our can recycling VERY seriously. It's not about iPods or pizza parties any more. No, now it's about personal pride.

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