Disappearing Dishes Pave Way for Paper Dining Services Solicits Environmental Council Ad

Author: Joshua Carson

Students are up in arms. "I received 10 comment cards last night at Proctor about bringing back large glasses," said Dining Services Associate Director Matthew Biette.But before you write another comment card, look around your room. How many Proctor Cups are sitting on your desk?

Dining Services is struggling to curtail the amount of dishware taken out of the dining halls. Biette estimates that students have taken seven to 10 thousand pieces of dishware from the dining halls this semester alone. He believes that students do not understand the implications of their actions - or simply do not care.

"It's a cultural problem, it's a responsibility problem," said a frustrated Biette. He believes that students adopt the attitude that they have the right to take dishware, when in fact there are significant economic implications of those actions. While students are encouraged to use outside seating at Proctor and FIC or dine on the front lawn of Ross, Dining Services expects students to return used dishware. "The downward spiral [of stealing dishware] is alive and well," lamented Biette. "Over the last three to four year it has been really bad and it has continued to get worse."

Each plastic cup, fork, knife and spoon costs one dollar. The large dinner plates at Ross Dining are seven dollars and at Proctor and FIC the plates cost $5.50. These are not especially steep prices, especially if only a few cups are missing. Dining Services, however, estimates that Ross is missing over 1,100 plastic cups, 700 dinner plates and 250 forks while Proctor is missing at total of 2,886 glass, plastic and coffee cups. Thousands of dollars have been spent thus far to replenish lost stocks but there is limited room in the budget and eventually, something will have to give.

Biette said that he plans to discontinue purchasing new plastic tumblers instead replacing them with the smaller and less expensive glass cups. Biette hopes that the inconvenience of carrying four cups rather than one will encourage students to be more respectful of dining hall property. He also urges students to use CUPPS Mugs or Nalgenes if they are going to take a beverage out of the dining hall.

Although never enforced, another deterrent for students thinking about "borrowing" dining hall property is the prospect of a fine or disciplinary action. The Middlebury College Handbook states, "Removal of food, dishes, utensils, etc., from College dining facilities may result in a $35 fine and disciplinary proceedings."

While Biette did note that since the beginning of the semester, "19 filled racks of tall glasses in the dish room that have been returned," unfortunately, "the tall glasses returned were not returned by students, they were returned by custodial [staff]."

Dining Services has worked with the Student Government Association (SGA), Inter Commons Council (ICC), Dining Council and Commons Deans yet has not found an effective strategy for containing dishware in the dining halls.

Most recently, however, Dining Services has reached out to the Environmental Council (EC) through an email pointing out the inherent contradictions of the Proctor cup dilemma and asking for "the prevailing thoughts of the council".

"If we do not put out the paper cups, we lose the plastic tumblers. If we have the paper cups, we then go against the re-useable thought process of the plastic cups," said the Oct. 10 e-mail.

If Dining Services begins to use more disposable cups, plates and utensils, this will pose both an economic and environmental problem, contradictory to the philosophy of the College. After paying for the cost of the disposables, the College would also be forced to pay the service charge to haul away the additional trash. This demand leads to an increase in fossil fuel use to produce and transport disposable products.

While the EC has not yet issued a formal response to the Dining Service e-mail, Mead Professor of Biology & Environmental Studies Stephen Trombulak, who is chairing the committee this semester, acknowledges that the "loss of dishware is a serious problem and [the EC] thinks that Dining Services efforts to find solutions are a good thing." Nevertheless, the EC is "not thrilled about idea of creating more trash. [The EC] would hope that there are other solution than disposables."

He noted, however, that it was not the EC's role to find a resolution but said the response from the Council would include a recommendation to organize a larger discussion on the issue, which should include the SGA.

"The issue has emerged because of student theft," Tromulak said. Thus, the group that represents student interests, and eventually other groups who are affected by the issue, should be included in the conversation, like the administration - who will ultimately have to foot the bill.