COLORADO SPRINGS–When push comes to shove, Colorado College students take the path of least resistance. Consider the case of “The Preserve,” a popular campus eatery typically packed around dinner. Students devour much of their loaded plates in a rush. But they leave plenty, and then they dump it, failing to sort it properly for recycling and compost. The Colorado College community prides itself in being environmentally conscious. They have compost and recycling all over campus, but how effective is our compost if students don’t take the time to use it properly?

“Our compost was so poorly sorted that it was the worst compost that the company received,” Isabel Atkin, a student, says. It has reached the point where, according to Atkin, the composting company CC hired nearly dropped its contract last year. The report coming out created a stir on campus, but it seems to have been forgotten. Students at Colorado generally claim to be engaged, however, our compost tells a different story of apathy and hypocrisy. Proper sorting of compost can be done in a matter of seconds, yet even this small step appears to be too much for some students.

“We like to boast about our energy efficiency and caring for the environment, but students don’t have to care and don’t necessarily care,” Charlie Bondurant, another student, said.  In this way, our campus is a microcosm for environmental issues on a large scale: when it counts, people seem to prefer the path of least resistance and neglect the long-term perspective. Bondurant summed up the issue when he said “It’s easier to not care. Screw future me. I only care about current me.”