The Problems With Plastic

Is the convenience of a single use - an environmentally hazardous luxury - worth the expense placed on Mother Earth? According to the Environmental Protection Agency, non-biodegradable plastic bags are used from nonrenewable resources and are regularly thrown away. One ton of plastic bags accounts for 11 barrels of oil. Plastic bags dominate precious landfill space and take 1,000 years to degrade. Toxic chemicals used to manufacture the bags are released into the air for us to breathe. The negatives have become infinite.

The Faculty Student Association (FSA) rewards a yearly grant for what they consider to be activities directed to enhance the cultural or educational experience of the campus. After review by the FSA board of directors, Senior Biology major Alex Staunch received the grant for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Staunch hopes the campus will reduce or eliminate use of plastic bags by distributing cloth totes for everyone living in the residence halls.

MB: What is your goal with the grant you received?
AS: "The goal of this grant is to give the students the tools to make the campus plastic bag free sometime in the future."

MB: How did you learn about the grant?
AS: "I learned about the grant last November. I looked into it [and] the paperwork was released in December. It was about a three week process to get letters of recommendation and getting the stats of a plastic free campus. I spoke to some other campuses, none of which are in the United States because none of them have done it who have gone plastic free. Basically, I created a good case for why these [cloth] bags should be supported."

MB: When will the cloth bags be distributed?
AS: "The cloth bags will be distributed Aug. 20, the Friday before move in day before the Fall 2010 semester. They will be distributed by the Campus Climate Challenge and the Department for Environmental Affairs."

MB: How do you plan on continuing the distribution of cloth bags in the future?
AS: "Hopefully I will be able to fill out the grant to distribute the bags the following year. It all depends on how the students respond to them. If the students use them and the FSA sees that, they will be more willing to repeat the grant again or take initiative on their own. The only way I see the students using the bags more or to use their backpacks is if FSA stops offering plastic bags, but there has to be some accountability on the students."

MB: Has FSA planned to eliminate plastic bags on campus?
AS: "No, not right now. There's no promise. I have met with numerous FSA representatives, gone to the book store and convenience store committee meetings and presented, as well as help make signs to promote these facts. Realistically it wouldn't benefit FSA right now to ban plastic bags."

MB: Why doesn't it benefit FSA?
AS: "The FSA provides a service. The plastic bags facilitates purchasing from the stores around campus."

MB: How much money is the grant offering?
AS: "It's around $3,400 or so. That's how much it's going to take to purchase over 2,650 cloth bags for the dorm residence. The exact numbers will be finalized sometime in the next month."

MB: Tell me about the manufacture of the totes. Who is responsible for that? What are the dimensions and design?
AS: "That's one more thing I need to look into. Most likely they're going to be green. In order to make it cheaper for the FSA they will choose the distributor. Since prices and quantity fluctuate constantly we don't know the distributor or exactly what they'll look like. Most likely it would have a SUNY Fredonia ‘go green' logo as well as an FSA logo."

MB: How much will this reduce the student's trash output?
AS: Our dumpster drive of two years ago found out that plastic bags account for 5.3% of our solid waste. So if all the students actually use the bags we could reduce that by 4%. Realistically, not all students will actually use these, so we will hopefully see a reduction of 1.5% to 2%. If plastic bags are eliminated completely we could see a complete elimination of plastic bag waste, which is what we're looking for."

MB: What else are you planning on doing around campus?
AS: "Well there is a huge amount of stuff that could and needs to be done. The CFL [compact fluorescent lamp] exchange program needs to be expanded. The whole disposal process with the custodians still needs to be ironed out. Things like the green fee, which hopefully will be kicking next semester. Then there are little things, like myself and Sherri Mason were granted a ten minute time slot at freshman convocation to present SUNY Fredonia's attempt to go green. Just to let the students know about what is going on around campus, the recycling bins and the CFL exchange. Stuff like that."