Like me, you’ve probably been chastised by food waste fighters on campus every time you mistakenly throw a compostable cup in the trash, or a chip bag (full of both metal and plastic) in the compost. Perhaps you went back and carefully extracted your chip bag and placed it in the correct receptacle. Or not – food waste fighters be damned, you have to get to class on time!
If you’re concerned about wastefulness, or simply would prefer not to have to think too hard about which container to put your waste in, you were probably glad to find out that most of the “to-go” dining ware that has been introduced to us at Smith since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic (take out boxes, “plastic” silverware and single-use plates, among other items) are compostable. We can throw the waste generated by our meals in one bucket, and then our “plastic” fork becomes rich soil that feeds the next generation of food. Huzzah!
Or so I thought, until I watched a presentation by two students in the CEEDS concentration capstone course last semester. That spoon made of corn that you got for your Lamont soup? It contains chemicals known as PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances). This is the same group of chemicals that makes your pans non-stick, repels water from your raincoat and exists in fire extinguisher foam. PFAS are everywhere, and yet they are known to be toxic. According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, PFAS exposure may lead to increased cholesterol, decreased vaccine response in children, fertility problems and increased risks of kidney/testicular cancer, among many other health issues. While I do not have the science to prove that your eco-friendly spoon from Lamont leeches nasty chemicals into the soil as it breaks down, this is something we should be concerned about.
Until we know for sure that our compostware is putting PFAS in our soils, and therefore, the food we grow, I propose that we minimize usage of these compostable plastics on campus. How might we do so? We can start by eliminating single-use plastics (compostable or not) from Smith dining halls. A little birdie told me that they’re preparing to remove take-out containers soon, anyway, in order to force a transition from pandemic to endemic COVID-19. This, of course, raises its own issues – what do those of us who are still wary of eating in the dining halls do?
All I can offer are two solutions: either we bring our own reusable to-go containers, or Smith brings back the old Ozzi exchange system. Either way, the system we have now isn’t sustainable in the long-term. Of course, you can always “pick a plate”, as some chic new signage in Chase-Duckett says, and eat outdoors as the weather warms up. Just make sure to bring it back.
The larger issue, however, remains unsolved: why isn’t Smith paying attention to what’s in our dining ware? Why don’t we, the people eating off of it, have more control over what we eat with? Students deserve more; we deserve the safest and healthiest food and to eat it from the least polluting cutlery. And everyone deserves healthy soil, free of PFAS and other human-made chemicals, in which we can grow our food.
The work of reducing waste on this campus in a way that is both sustainable to human health and the environment should not be left entirely up to us as individuals. We should call on Smith, and other institutions implementing compostable plastics as a band aid response to students (rightfully) complaining about the ghastly amount of waste college campuses produce. We are entitled to know that the dining ware we use everyday isn’t polluting the local soil, and we need to hold Smith responsible for this.
