Greening Princeton University’s Social Scene

Abstract

At Princeton University, one Eating Club alone goes through around 3000 plastic cups on a single night. When scaled by the numerous social events, meetings, conferences, and reunions that occur at the university annually, this figure rapidly surpasses a million. Additionally, the current system established on our campus is a purely linear plastic economy, meaning that all cups eventually end up in the landfill. Therefore, in this report, I conduct a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) from the cradle to the grave of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and Polylactic Acid (PLA) plastic cups. PET cups are made out of fossil fuels and are the most common type of plastic cups used on our campus. On the other hand, PLA cups are made out of renewable plant starch and are beginning to make an appearance in Eating Clubs and college social scenes nationally as they are perceived to be “the sustainable option.” The LCA calculates the environmental impact of both cups at each stage, from the production of the pellets, to the conversion of pellets to cups, to the final disposing of cups. The results demonstrate that standardizing the use of PET cups throughout campus and mechanically recycling those cups is the most feasible and environmentally friendly solution in order to generate a circular economy. I further develop a business proposal to the Princeton administration and Eating Clubs to invest in a mechanical recycling plant on our campus by presenting the economical, environmental, and social impact of this plan.