College against College: Recyclemania Showdown

Recyclemania is an inter-college competition that tracks which college can recycle the most over 8 weeks.

* Cue Dramatic Music *

A Bard student, magnificently dressed in rainbow scarves, a leather jacket, and a polka dot dress, strides boldly onto the stage. Her sleeves are adorned with buttons supporting various political, social, and ecological causes. She wields a copy of Kant in one hand, and a thermos of Fair Trade coffee in the other.

* Music turns Evil *

A Vassar student swaggers jauntily onto the stage, surrounded by a crowd of groupies. She is dressed in a sweater suit and pearls. She wields a copy of the Oprah magazine in one hand, and in the other (audience shudders in revulsion) a paper cup from Starbucks. The Bard student, bound to show her disapproval of this beverage travesty, bites her thumb at the Vassar student.

Naturally, this literary allusion to Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet goes right over the Vassar student’s head. So the Bard damsel is forced to register her disapproval in a cruder way, namely by flipping the bird.

Vassar wench: Do you flip your bird at us, madam?

Bard Damsel: I do flip my bird, madam.

Vassar wench: But do you flip your bird AT us, madam?

Bard Damsel: (speaking softly to her friend in the wings of the stage): Is the law of Botstein on our side, if I say ay?

Friend: No.

Bard Damsel: I do not flip my bird at you, madam, but I flip my bird, madam.

Vassar wench: Do you quarrel, madam?

Bard Damsel: Quarrel madam! no, madam.

Vassar Wench: If you do, madam, I am ready; for I am as well versed in the ways of Kant as you, and the claim that I spend my days reading cliff notes and watching American Idol is mere hearsay.

Bard Damsel: Well versed in Kant you may be; but can you RECYCLE?

Vassar wench (blanches in fear, then with a toss of her head, resumes her haughty dignity): Recycle? Why, in Vassar, we recycle a forest every day! The aluminum cans which we hath tossed in the recycling bins doth furnish the wherewithal to build entire airplanes!

Bard Damsel: Cease thy hollow boasting, foolish wastrel, lest you are prepared to engage in mortal combat with me, thy rival.

Vassar wench: Have at it then!!!

* The music swells to a dramatic crescendo. Piles of garbage, along with the appropriate recycling bins, are rolled onto the stage. Both warriors begin furiously chucking things into the bins. *

Bard Damsel: Lo and behold! For my stock of recycled food scraps to put into composting is far greater than thine!

Vassar wench (sneering): That’s because Bard students don’t know how to clean their plates!

Bard Damsel: Nay, but lo and behold! For the statistics show that last year Bard was the all-USA food scraps CHAMPION!

Vassar wench: Speak not to me again of the disgusting offal that remains from your piggish food orgies at Kline!

* the clang clanging of cans going into bins escalates in rhythm and intensity. *

Bard Damsel: Ah-ha-ha! Know you not, ignorant Vassar varlet, that all containers must be rinsed and have their caps removed before being placed in the recycling bin?

Vassar wench: Aaaaaaarrgh! (Retrieves the last 100 bottles she has placed in the recycling bin and begins to wash them.)

Bard Damsel (speaking to herself): I begin to see now why they say that 3% of America’s energy is used to produce packaging. I must lay my plans well, and bring about a revolution that will transform the system of this decadent imperialistic country!

(Vassar wench holds up a used printer cartridge, a confused expression on her vapidly pretty face. She tosses her blond curls and pouts in puzzlement.)

Bard Damsel (rubbing her hands together): Mwa-ha-ha! The Vassar wench does not even know that printer cartridges, CFLs, batteries, cell phones, plastic bags, and other hazardous items must be placed in the BERP box or brought to the nearest BERP for proper disposal!

(BERP = Bard Environmental Resource Person)

Vassar wench: Well, Vassar doesn’t have BERPs! Vassar has VERPs! Bard student, beware the dread wrath of VERPly might! (She throws the last of her aluminum cans into the bin with a defiant crash.)

Bard Damsel (letting the last load of Free Press papers slide into the recycling bin): I am finished!

Vassar wench: I too am finished!

Bard Damsel: Let the weighing commence!

A giant pair of scales is brought onto the stage, and loaded up with the recycling bins from either team. The suspense has everyone on the razor’s edge. The audience is holding their collective breath.

Bard Damsel (interjects cheerily): Did you know that Americans throw away enough paper every year to build a twelve-foot high wall from Los Angeles to New York?

Vassar wench: Be silent, fool! The moment of truth is approaching. (The scales sway, then steady. The audience breaks out into a roar.)

Ringmaster: Lo and behold! The Vassar Team and the Bard Team are exactly tied.

The Vassar wench gets a wild look on her face, glugs the last of her Starbucks, and then throws her paper cup into the recycling container on her side of the scale. The balance tips ever-so-slightly in her favor. She cackles in evil triumph.

Vassar wench: Behold! I have triumphed!

Bard Damsel in Distress: NOOOOooooOOOOooooooOOOOOooo!!!!! (clutches hands to head and collapses onto the stage like a melting witch.)

* Close curtains *

So, I’m sure you’ve gotten the message by now. Recycling something is great, but not using it in the first place is even better.

The question I struggled with when writing this blog, is WHY is recycling so hard to do? Why do we have to hold exciting intercollegiate competitions with names like Recyclemania? Why isn’t it just something everyone does as a matter of habit?

Well, forgetting to recycle still carries very little social stigma. And recycling initiatives in the USA are still mostly voluntary. When I lived in Canada, the garbagemen wouldn’t pick up the bags at the curb, unless we had properly sorted into wet recycling, dry recycling, and landfill. You always felt guilty if you saw you had more landfill bags than your neighbors. True, we lived in Guelph, Ontario, where the Green Party enjoys unusual levels of support.

A cynic would say that appealing to the goodness of our hearts and posting signs around campus isn’t enough to make us change our ways. Well, let’s prove the cynics wrong: Let’s recycle more, and use less, than we ever have before! Not because BERPS will be hovering around waiting to give raffle tickets to people who are “caught green-handed” (although they will.) But because we have to live up to our reputation (acknowledged by the Fiske Guide to Colleges) as one of the most socially aware campuses in the United States.