From endless new and delicious boba combinations to every flavor of Red Bull imaginable, the new Snack Bar expansions have been a godsend. The quality of our dining services has skyrocketed across the board this year. With new to-go options in the FFC—dining hall soon to open!—and packaged treats in the Snack Bar, getting food is now easier than ever. These new additions are both convenient and tasty, but they come at a cost.
Between the uptick in plastic products in the Snack Bar and the student body’s apparent indifference to the fact that straws and half-drunk boba are not recyclable, our school’s environmental impact is headed in the wrong direction. Senior General Manager at CulinArt Dining Services Ms. Denee Hinman, the brilliant mind behind these revamps, is collaborating with me to reverse this environmental impact. As a part of this effort, recent changes in the Snack Bar have included switching from plastic to paper condiment cups, making utensils available only upon request, and eliminating plastic water bottles altogether. However, without reforming student behavior, these changes can only go so far.
It’s time us students act consciously to minimize our environmental impact. Sure, I’ll admit it: it’s hard to turn down Thai milk tea in the morning after staying up half the night—but it’s a decision we have to make. Every week, the student body runs through an obscene amount of plastic products at the Snack Bar—products which, even after being recycled, will only fully decompose after about 1,000 years. It may not seem like one person’s choice “to boba or not to boba” makes much of a difference, but every action matters—especially when the ultimate problem we face is so severe.
From the ocean to our brains, plastic is taking over the world. As recorded by The Ocean Cleanup, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has recently surpassed a landmass of three times the size of France. Even more frightening—a 2024 study by the New Mexico University professor Michael Campen found that the average fifty-year-old has about a full plastic spoon’s worth of microplastics in their brain. If that doesn’t scare you into switching from plastic to metal water bottles, I don’t know what will.
Granted, avoiding using a plastic bottle once will not magically make the Great Pacific Garbage Patch vanish; however, it’s a good place to start. Just because this issue is daunting doesn’t mean we can ignore it.
We have more power to create change than we realize—all we have to do is take the first step. Let’s say today you take your Hydro Flask out of storage from the VSCO era and commit to only using a reusable water bottle. By the end of a little over a decade, the height of all the bottles you will have saved will likely equal around the height of the Empire State Building. Now that’s a difference that’s pretty hard to ignore.
I’m not saying this means you should never order another drink in a plastic container again. All I’m suggesting is that you think about the consequences before you go on a month-long boba-buying streak. Maybe you choose to wait to fill your reusable water bottle up at the FFC instead of buying a Powerade at the Snack Bar, or maybe you completely commit to stop buying plastic-bottled water. Regardless, every action makes a difference.
It’s easy to feel like we don’t have the power to change things. It’s even easier to pretend like our bad habits don’t matter “because everyone else is doing it too,” but they do. Your choice “to boba or not to boba” does matter. So own up to it.
