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Buy kegs, save the environment
Monday, February 10, 2003
500 students say kegs are eco-friendly option
by Colin Barry
The Dartmouth
A student-run environmental petition drew 500 signatories to an empty beer keg in the Collis Center Friday, in an effort to convince administrators to ease keg restrictions at campus parties.
"Do you enjoy kegs and have 30 seconds to support them?" Environmental Conservation Organization representatives working to reduce aluminum can waste asked passers-by.
The College's current alcohol policy, revised last term, allows the consumption of alcohol from kegs only at parties that have been registered with the Office of Residential Life. Campus groups -- including Greek organizations -- cannot register more than two parties per week and must complete the registration process two days before the proposed event.
Restricting kegs to registered parties results in the widespread purchase of alcohol in aluminum cans, petition organizers say, which is more environmentally harmful than beer consumed from kegs.
"Frats buy piles and piles of cans and partygoers throw cans in with cups, so that they can't be recycled," said Drew McConville '03, one of the students who organized the petition.
ECO representatives also cited the cost savings of buying beer in kegs in their petition literature. By volume, canned beer is approximately twice as expensive as alcohol purchased in a keg.
"Given that people choose to drink, students and the administration should support a policy that is both environmentally and economically sound," Andrew Hoffman '05 said.
Hoffman serves as the Greek intern for ECO and is the petition's primary organizer.
According to ECO representatives, substantial consumption of beer in cans would be damaging to the environment even if alcohol-serving organizations could effectively recycle.
"It takes the same amount of energy to refine one pound of aluminum as to power a computer for as long as 138 hours," McConville said.
ECO organizers have attempted to contact senior College administration members directly, with limited success. Petitioners scheduled an appointment with College President James Wright, but the President's Office cancelled the meeting last week, according to Hoffman.
"I also blitzed Dean [of the College James] Larimore and he has not yet returned my blitz," Hoffman said.
Both students and Greek organizations have been very receptive to ECO's effects, petition organizers said. However, some students have reportedly declined to sign the petition because of concerns that it would increase on-campus drinking. Several sororities also did not lend their support to the initiative.
"Some of the dry national sororities say that they cannot support a petition advocating alcohol consumption," Hoffman said.
Though the petition would presumably affect Greek houses most heavily, many petitioners identified themselves as unaffiliated. They emphasized that their support was primarily due to environmental concerns.
"I've seen piles of cans outside of frat houses the day after a party and it just seems to be incredibly wasteful," Pete Bohler '03 said.
Most students who signed the petition did not believe that the greater availability of kegs would contribute to drinking on campus.
"People who want to drink are going to get alcohol anyway," Kirstin Ellison '05 said.
But while Friday's petitioners generally displayed high spirits, most doubted that College administrators would take their support seriously.
"We've already seen how difficult it is to get them to change their minds," Eric Eisenberg '05 said.
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