Forego your Wii for Monopoly, your dryer for some clotheslines and your long, hot shower for a shorter, colder one. It’s the start of Green Cup.
Though the competition in previous years has seen extremes, such as students putting away their game consoles completely, this year’s third-annual Green Cup aims to help residents maintain everyday sustainability by changing the competition’s timing, from Spring Quarter to Winter Quarter, and length, from two weeks to six weeks.
“The idea of Green Cup is to encourage students to change their habits,” said Music senior Colin McGrath, chairman of Students for Environmental and Ecological Development. “We’d have students go to an extreme to cut their use of energy. On a day-to-day life, it wasn’t sustainable.”
The changes were the university’s suggestion, in the hope that a longer competition will help students form good habits, the Music junior said. Green Cup starts today and will end March 3.
The competition is taking place during Winter Quarter instead of Spring Quarter because more energy is consumed during the cold season.
“Over two weeks, it’s easy to get out of the habit of turning off your lights and such because it’s only two weeks,” McGrath said.
The Green Cup kicked off with a compact fluorescent lights giveaway Friday, which SEED’s Green Cup chairwoman Laura Christian considered successful. At the end, there were only two light bulbs remaining.
“We hope that students will incorporate this into their daily lifestyle,” the Weinberg junior said.
The competition is divided into two divisions: dorms with and without dining halls. SEED has measured the dorms’ current energy consumption and will compare it with each dorm’s consumption during the competition. The two division winners each will receive a party, among other prizes, provided by SodexhoUSA and Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria.
Christian said she hopes to see Sodexho employees in the dining halls also consume less energy and water because the university food services provider is helping sponsor Green Cup.
Last year, Willard Residential College won in the dining hall division, and Cultural and Community Studies Residential College took first place among dorms without dining halls.
“It was just a matter of everyone doing their own part, accumulating into a win for the dorm,” said Willard President Stuart Anderson, a Weinberg sophomore. “Now that it’s longer, I think people will find it more difficult to make a change.”
Certain dorms try to be more innovative in decreasing their overall consumption.
Even though Communications Residential College encourages its residents to unplug their appliances and turn off their lights, the dorm also outraged some of its residents last year when the decision was made to unplug its vending machines.
“It created a little feud within the dorm,” said CRC President Ryan Gallagher, a Communication sophomore. “It gets kind of extreme sometimes.”
For Slivka Residential College of Science and Engineering residents, the dorm’s executive board makes an effort to make Green Cup a dormwide event.
“We try to plan events that are less energy-intensive,” said Slivka President Erick Bennett. “We’ve actually had clotheslines so people can wash their clothes as opposed to using dryers.”
The McCormick junior also said Slivka plans events, such as board game nights, instead of their usual video game nights.
“The people that participate really heavily do it because they enjoy it,” Bennett said. “I think their energy really radiates to the rest of the people.”
Reach Alice Truong at [email protected].
