Dining Hall Cup Waste
Maeve Dowd ’23, Charlotte Furia ’25, Fedora Liu ’24, Jessica Luo ’24
Natalie Poole ’25
Despite popular belief and their deceiving name, the paper cups that students and faculty frequently use in the Loomis Chaffee dining hall are not recyclable or compostable. Paper cups are not just made out of paper. Since they are designed for durability and extremely hot liquids, the cups are coated with wax or plastic, making them unsuitable for recycling or composting. This seemingly minor characteristic generates major environmental repercussions when around 1000 paper cups are used every day.
Aside from the issue surrounding recyclability, the paper cup controversy strains the economic situation in the LC dining hall. Financially, thousands of dollars are spent on paper cups. Put simply, the privilege of paper cups is abused. These cups are meant solely for the consumption of hot beverages, yet they have transformed into not only a container for cold drinks but also for food.
The student body holds a plethora of differing opinions regarding how we should address this issue. While some students remain indifferent to their carbon footprint, others worry about the tremendous amounts of waste caused by our school community.
“Even though [people] acknowledge that it's bad, we do not have many alternatives. If you cannot take food out and there are no [to-go] boxes, people automatically think of the paper cups,” said Sophia Li ’24.
One stronger view includes worries about the wasteful nature of these containers.
“Paper cups have to go,” said Luke Daughtery ’24. “The thousand cups of waste is going to landfills...just because people want to take cantaloupe with them to class.”
LC’s waste problem often spans beyond the simple white paper cup. Some students note flaws with the current mugs and other containers that aren’t suitable for their needs.
“The mugs in the dining hall are so small you can't fit anything in them. That's why I'm using a paper cup right now for coffee because it can just hold more,” said Brigham Cooper ’24.
Other students find difficulty scheduling eating times during a particularly busy schedule.
“I think that the to-go cups are a problem, and we shouldn’t be contributing to waste. At the same time, I need to eat, and when I have ten to fifteen minutes between different activities, I usually go to the dining hall and get something in the cups,” said Mina Ruffle ’24.
In the search for short-term possible solutions to mitigate environmental damage, Loomis Chaffee should begin by identifying and solving the root causes that prompt students to inappropriately use non-recyclable cups. To tackle the issue of eating schedules, the school could establish a proper dinner time in which no extracurricular activities may be held so that students have time to eat in the dining hall. Additionally, to Cooper’s point, the small mugs could be replaced by larger ones. Further, to eliminate the waste created by offering non-recyclable cups, LC could consider replacing them with biodegradable or compostable containers.
However, while the suggestions above may temporarily combat the environmental issues surrounding paper cups, the school should ultimately work towards solutions that push community members to fundamentally consider their habits and the environmental consequences.
Offering opportunities for students to change their habits in the long term incentivizes them to not only consider their actions through the lens of the cup waste issue but further as they confront other sustainability matters. For instance, the school could consider providing reusable food containers in cases where students cannot eat in the dining hall. Another alternative could include establishing a reusable container system within dorms in which such containers are offered to residents to be taken for use, cleaned, and returned. Ultimately, solutions should motivate and guide students to find their solutions and build sustainable habits rather than bending the system to their convenience. And though environmental and administrative groups on campus can play their part through education and awareness, the way to solve such an issue is through the actions of the individual.
