Our Cups Runneth Over

WE'VE all seen it.

The guy in the Union with 10 or 12 waxed-paper cups on his tray maybe half of them filled, most of them probably just extras he grabbed accidentally. The happy first-year finishes his meal, brings his tray to the waste baskets and conveyor belt, and proceeds to throw out the equivalent of a small tree.

We've all done it.

Those handy Veritas shield paper cups are attractive little tools we use daily to fill with milk, Coke, Diet Sprite, water or apple-cranberry juice. Or all of the above. It's very easy to pick up two or three or six of these cups, even if we could get by with one or two.

On April 22, Harvard students should recognize the 20th anniversary of Earth Day--a day to think about the importance of protecting our environment--by avoiding these non-recyclable cups. And Harvard should provide first-years with the choice that the residents of all of the houses except Adams have in their dining halls--the choice of using reusable glasses instead of wasteful paper ones.

The Greek earth goddess Gaia would appreciate it, and the benefit for Mother Earth would not be insignificant.

A QUICK calculation of the number of paper cups used daily in Harvard's dining halls is astonishing. If we assume, on average, that 6000 of the college's 6400 undergraduates eat two meals a day, and use two cups at each meal, the number of non-recyclable cups wasted daily comes out to a staggering 24,000.

That's well over three million cups wasted every school year, using conservative figures. How many trees are sacrificed for three million nonrecyclable cups? And how many acres of land are used to dispose of them?

Harvard students all grab more cups than we need at meals. I used to automatically remove four cups from the stack only to use two or three. I never considered that I could get only one cup and make the small effort to get up and refill it later.

I was being lazy, but not to the extreme of some of my fellow first-year sloths. They scatter their trays with a dozen cups, few filled to the brim, most empty. No one has such a thirst. And if people do, they should see a doctor. That is, before our forests have vanished.

It's not all our fault, though. Harvard Dining Services is not doing much to discourage waste of paper cups. Although each of the 12 residential houses gives students the option of using real glasses that can be washed, dried and reused the next meal, only one house has abandoned the paper cups entirely. Mather House, which offers only glasses to its residents, is the model Mother Earth House for Harvard.

The Union, meanwhile, is the model anti-Earth House, as it doesn't even offer students glasses. First-years file through the Union's food line only to be greeted by column after towering column of neatly-stacked crimson-and-white waxed paper cups. Harvard forces each first-year to waste at least one twig of a sacrificial tree.

THE only way to stop the yearly disposal of three million cups is to make them unavailable, and increase the number of glasses. Until then, the solution is to use glasses or resort to more innovative measures.

A few student environmentalists have succeeded in breaking the system of Harvard's forced-waste policy in the Union. They have purchased plastic mugs designed by Harvard's Environmental Action Committee (EAC) and have decided to tote them along to every meal, determined to use not one environment-jeapordizing paper cup.

The mugs display an image of the Earth with "Earth Day--Every Day" surrounding it, and substitute "GA-I-A" in the "VE-RI-TAS" shield in honor of the Greek earth goddess. Upon returning to their dorms, the dedicated first-years wash out their mugs and ready them for the next meal.

Earth Day mugs are definitely cool. But for less die-hard environmentalists like you and me, who would prefer not to carry our drinking implements across the Yard three times a day, there must be another option. And Harvard must provide it.

In honor of Earth Day, the Harvard Union should offer glasses to its customers and start to remove the nonrecyclable paper cups, which are doing nothing but diminishing our forests and filling our garbage dumps.

If the Union decides to keep replenishing the Towers of Cups to keep up with our demand, let us love our Mother for just one day. On April 22, bring your EAC mugs, your random plastic cups gathering dust in your dorm rooms, your idle FOP canteens. On this one day, refuse to use wasteful paper cups and show Harvard that we care about our environment.

Maybe they'll get the message.