I contemplated whether or not I should bring it up. Here we are, my roommate, her boyfriend, and I, at a Mexican Festival downtown on a sunny day, enjoying our tacos, and who I was to interrupt such bliss with thoughts of self-examination and global impact? We’ve lived together for approximately one month, we don’t know each other that well yet, and I can’t recall seeing this strategy included on any lists of “how to make new friends at college.” The conversation had been resoundingly unstimulating, though, so I took the chance of sparking one.

“Gosh, I hate that I bought this water bottle. But I also don’t want to get dehydrated.” Shaking my head, I turned it over in my hands to have something to do with them, kicking myself for not bringing my reusable canteen.

“Why do you hate that?” My roommate’s boyfriend inquired with genuine curiosity.

Part of my earlier contemplation involved weighing the chances of this question being asked, which I was happy to answer, but indicated the course of conversation. “Because they’re… bad. To put it simply.” I laughed at myself for using such a word to describe such a problem.

“You can recycle them, though!” 

“You can recycle them! The water still came from an aquifer, though… which are being depleted…” I made note to stop trailing off and looking down when I’m uncomfortable in conversation, though confident in my words, and to stop softening my words with smiles to make those I’m around less uncomfortable, too.

“Look, there’s a recycling bin right over there!”

“There is! But there’s actually controversy over whether or not recycling is doing what we think it’s doing, since it’s still going to another landfill…” And it doesn’t address the production or consumption of goods such as plastic, in fact, is it mostly just an excuse for us to continue full-steam ahead, an act to make us feel better about actions we can’t undo? Treatment versus prevention?

My roommate didn’t look away from whatever interesting thing she was inspecting in the distance. Her boyfriend returned my searching eyes with a blank stare. That was the end of the conversation, and I was reminded of Cecily Strong in the Saturday Night Live sketch “girl you wish you hadn’t started a conversation with at a party.” In my defense, I wasn’t aiming to lecture anybody. I began with a statement of self-deprecation. I bought the water bottle. What I was trying to do was have engaging discussion over the balance between meeting our own needs without compromising sustainability, or how exactly aquifers become dried up, or thoughts on the true impact of recycling. Something other than how scrumptious the tacos are. (Though they were. The booth we went to had vegetarian chorizo.)

All of this is not to say that I am a wise and righteous public servant and the company I was in are ignorant and dim sheep. Not in the slightest. As I mentioned, I almost didn’t bring it up at all. I didn’t come out swinging, I came out waving my arms awkwardly, hoping someone would see. It is to say, though, that as a society, we overwhelmingly choose to not speak of our actions as though they have an effect on any resource or group of people. And if we do, we find the silver lining, something that indicates the problem isn’t as bad as we think. The treatment.

I get it. They are sobering truths. The further I trudge in the trenches, the more I learn, the more blown away I am. I suppose, after the initial shock, there are two avenues to turn down: apathetic silence, because it is too overwhelmingly large scale for us to fix thus discuss, or call it out. Ask ourselves questions and ask other people questions. It is not shaming, it is not a lecture, because to be so would indicate that the problems and solutions aren’t collective efforts. It may dampen the mood, due to the fact that we have the privileged option of looking away, but so what?