Dear President Donald P. Christian,

 

I feel that New Paltz is diligent when it comes to environmental hazards compared to many Colleges and Universities. Although, when entering a standard female dorm bathroom, you notice no feminine trash cans in any of the stalls. This requires feminine students to grab a “Scensible Bag” every time they need to dispose of menstrual care items. These are little, small plastic bags that tie at the top, so we can dispose of feminine products in the bathroom trash bin. I feel it is extremely hypocritical for the school to claim such environmental awareness when the single use “Scensible Bags” are being used and they cause such a great inconvenience.

First, I would like to touch upon the fact of how practically every other building on campus has feminine trash bins in all the stalls. Now as a female myself I am doing most of my feminine product changing in the dorms and not these random buildings. It is ironic cause the dorms are the one place the bin in the stalls is not accessible. There is already little to no privacy in the communal bathrooms, and on top of that I can’t even deal with my menstrual needs in the privacy of the stall and must take it to the trash bin. Now this is just one of many minor inconveniences and frustrations regarding the “Scensible Bags”.

I have found over the 2 to almost 3 months of living here that once the bags run out, they are not quickly restocked and can go numerous days like this. Now as a student I can easily

email my RA to restock the bags. Although that doesn’t change the fact that in the moment I am stuck with no bag and no trash bin in the stall. Now this leaves two options. One wrapping it all up in toilet paper, which trust me one does not want to be man handling these products; or two flushing whatever said product is which is the last thing I want to do. A simple fix would be leaving some sort of stock of the bags in the bathroom. Therefore, every time they run out, we do not have to track down and harass the RA’s. It is extremely frustrating when the bags aren’t stocked and leaves me with only one options on what to do.

On the box that the “Scensible Bags” are in it says how to use the product, the products name and then in smaller font it says biodegradable. Although, after doing further research on theses bags only about 20% of the materials used are biodegradable. Menstrual care products already use up copious amount of plastic and now the disposal of them is adding on so much more. After doing some math I found that during an average menstrual cycle of 5 days that approximately 3 bags are used a day and that adds up to a total of 15 bags per cycle. Now multiplying this by the 4,979 females New Paltz students, give or take a few hundred due to part time students, off campus residential students and many other swaying factors, this adds up to roughly 74,000 bags a month. This abundance of single use plastic waste is something that can easily be minimized by the installation of a feminine trash bin in each stall.

After researching about the degrading process of plastic I have found that plastics never truly break down into the Earth like the apple core you threw outside your window. Plastic merely breaks and breaks until it is in small pieces called microplastics. In an article called “Single-Use Plastics 101” it states that “They end up in the water, eaten by wildlife, and inside our bodies. They’ve even made their way up to the secluded Pyrenees mountain range and down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. For wildlife, microplastics can be particularly dangerous;

when eaten they can easily accumulate inside an animal’s body and cause health issues, like punctured organs or fatal intestinal blockages” (Lindwall). After knowing this information, I personally find it difficult to have to use such harmful products with no other alternative. These “Scensible Bags” may be at the convenience of the school and to some students, but in the greater scheme of things it is extremely harmful to the world around us.

Opposing side may claim these bags are a more affordable way to dispose of menstrual care items. However, long-term buying multitudes of “Scensible Bags” will cost the school more money; this cost is more than it would be to install bins and buy a fraction of the amount of bags for the bins in the stalls. Now even some may say it is a cleaner more hygienic way to dispose of feminine products. This may be true, but I feel that the economical and environment consequences alone are enough of a reason to give the use of “Scensible Bags” a second thought.

Now things are more difficult with Covid and eliminating single use plastics is merely impossible. Such as something like the utensils they give you when you pick up food from the food court really cannot be avoided because the food is mostly to go. Although, items like the “Scensible Bags” and plastic straws at all drink locations on campus are simple single use plastic items that can be replaced. If the inconvenience and frustration of the “Scensible Bag” is not enough to convince you; let the crippling environment and selfishness of humans be the reason New Paltz becomes more environmentally friendly.