I’ve had “good intentions” towards “the environment” since I was a little kid. Before coming to Dartmouth, I recycled regularly, volunteered at the Native Plant Nursery, and occasionally ranted about how disgusting SUVs were. Aside from these token concerns, though, I wasn’t especially conscious about living sustainably. I still took excessively long showers, and every week, after volunteering at the Native Plant Nursery, went to “Chubby Burgers” to buy milkshakes, which, of course, came in bulky Styrofoam cups.

The big switch to eco-obsessed living came for me during winter quarter this year as I became increasingly involved with the Enevironmental Conservation Organization at Dartmouth. I’m not sure why I developed this newfound environmental conscience-maybe I needed to create more analretentive rituals for myself to take my mind off the miserable cold-but gradually, I started using Tupperware, my ECO mug, and eventually swore off plastic silverware completely. I reached a point where I would be wrought with guilt if I had to use a paper cup. Nevertheless, it felt good to be proactive about everyday conservation, as opposed to living in my previous state of passive, hypocritical crankiness.

My newfound anality has definitely put me in some frustrating situations. As much as I love their hot chocolate, Novack Cafe has become the sworn enemy of me and my ECO mug. I had my first negative encounter with the eco-ignorant Novack staff when I went in, handed my ECO mug to the student working there, and asked for a small hot chocolate. At first my mug seemed well-received–the student took it and set it on the counter next to the machine. However, I continued to watch in horror as the student quickly stuck a small paper cup under the machine’s spout, filled it with hot chocolate, poured the hot chocolate from the paper cup into my ECO mug, and proceeded to throw the paper cup into the trash.

“Wait! I can compost the cup!” I cried, determined to salvage something from the situation. As she handed me the hot chocolate and the paper cup, I couldn’t refrain from commenting, “Yeah, that’s so not the point of me using my ECO mug.”

“Oh.” She looked at me dully, probably annoyed that I was still there. I went on my way with the offending cup, chiding myself for not being more aggressive with my mug and cursing Novack for their wonderful hot chocolate. But why was I so annoyed? I had committed worse sins against the environment with my Styrofoam cups in the past.

A few days later I was eating dinner on the green with a few friends. We were talking about how much waste our society produces, and the example of DDS’s signature plastic containers (which are an atrocity in the eyes of most environmentally minded students) came up. A friend of mine pointed out that despite my choice to avoid using the plastic containers and my involvement in ECO Tupperware campaigns, I am still making an essentially insignificant contribution to waste reduction. She had worked in a bakery over the summer, and saw the huge amount of plastic containers that were thrown away there. “If you really want to make a difference,” she said, “you should target the bakeries.”

So have I been wasting my energy lugging my ECO mug and Tupperware around? I am only one in a population of over six billion, and despite inhabiting the egocentric universe of an eighteen year old, am fully aware of my own insignificance in the world. I realize that I’m not going to save the world by compost fairying at Dartmouth or by giving up meat. So why am I doing it if I realize that it may not change anything?

Though it may seem rather optimistic, I hope that my actions cause people around me to ask themselves why they are not toting an ECO mug as well. After all, the eco-conscious students with mugs, Tupperwear and composting stickers on their Nalgenes served as role models for me and helped me develop my own sense of personal accountability ethics. Still, I recognize the limited success of simply leading by example- my boyfriend still uses a paper cup every day for his coffee, despite my ever-present mug and my occasional whimper if the cup ends up in a trash can instead of ECO’s beloved compost bins.

Maybe my efforts to make a difference are, in the macroscopic world view, futile, but they are an integral part of my personal ethical code. It would be senseless to tell someone who believes killing animals is wrong that “they’re going to die anyway, so you might as well eat them,” because even though the vegetarian might hope that her actions have practical effects, it is her sense of ethics that really holds her to this chosen dietary constraint. The same holds true for my environmental consciousness-environmental degradation will probably continue, but I don’t want to contribute to it.

In the end, I have to abide by my own sense of environmental ethics. If I believe that we should be trying to minimize the damage that humans do to the environment (and I do), the least I can do is to attempt to actually live by these principles myself. Personal integrity and the hope that my small contribution to this effort will make a difference help me stick to my small-time activist ideals. Yes, I could make more of an impact if I got bakeries to use less packaging on their pastries, but in the meantime I might as well use less paper myself.
And, I still believe that, as more people become aware and accountable for their actions, the little things will begin to make a difference too.

Lakshmi Narayan ‘06 plans on majoring in biology. You may know her as that crazy girl who tries to use her ECO mug in Novack.