I unquestionably admired Dickinson’s commitment to environmentalism until one sunny day in October last year. One grave misstep led to me face-planting in front of Rector, and once the adrenaline wore off, I realized I was bleeding. No matter, I’ve spent the last four summers mopping up injuries as a camp counselor. I was met with cratering disappointment when I remembered this institution’s eco-friendly pledge, and found myself cleaning the blood off my knee first with the one-ply toilet paper that promptly dissolved when wetted with water. 

In an act of desperation, I grabbed a pad and started using that to get the rest of the blood off, which is an incredibly demoralizing moment of creativity when your teammate spots you and asks how your day is going. Well, it could have been going better if there were any paper towels on this campus. 

I respect Dickinson’s hustle towards carbon neutrality, I really do, but our lofty goals have come at an admittedly annoying cost. It’s not like there is a campus wide pandemic of faceplanting and requiring paper towels to wipe the blood away, but it gets to a point. Case and point: we are dead in the middle of cold and flu season right now, or runny nose season at a minimum, and there isn’t a tissue to spare on campus. All we have is the aforementioned one-ply toilet paper and a dream. But sure, keep the plastic drink cups at SNAR and Denim. Something isn’t adding up here. 

When I first moved into my dorm on the lower quad, I very quickly realized that there was no way of drying my hands in the bathroom. No paper towels, no hand dryer, just that damn one-ply toilet paper, just to mock me. 

I figured it was because there were four other fall athletes in my dorm who had moved in early, and that they would give us something later, but a few months passed after classes started and there were still no paper towels. I was not social enough to carry a handkerchief with me for drying my hands off, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to trade one inconvenience (walking out of the bathroom with wet hands) for another when there’s no hand dryer in sight. 

I feel as though there has to be some kind of middle ground for this issue. After taking an environmental science class or two, I’m acutely aware of the fact that the planet is on fire and there are microplastics in my heart. I had an assembly in middle school to watch that video of a turtle with a straw up its nose in middle school. I know that small actions like reducing paper and water usage is important to curbing the environment’s downward spiral. However, maybe a little more forewarning on the paperlessness on Dickinson’s campus would also be welcome.