Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Rotunda Online
The Rotunda
Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Op-Ed: Pepsi's Green, Longwood's Green

Pepsi Vending Machines

Longwood University employees recently received a mass email regarding a change in beverage vendors on campus. The email, issued by the Office of Administration and Finance on March 24, announced that Longwood and Pepsi have signed a long-term beverage vendor contract. Pepsi will be investing in campus development through multiple avenues including athletics, campus marketing, and sustainability efforts. 

The office’s Vice President, Matthew McGregor, was contacted for further clarification on the sustainability efforts that will be assumed. According to McGregor, Pepsi will probably just be funding a campus sustainability initiative, but the initiatives have not yet been created or identified. While it’s promising that the sustainability funding was considered during the contract’s development, the lack of forethought regarding use of the funding is predictably substandard. 

Longwood’s sustainability efforts are consistently lackluster, especially in comparison to other public universities in Virginia. Since Governor Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order 17, which rescinds the previously issued limits on single-use plastic distribution at state facilities, Longwood’s campus has returned to its original cycle of distribution and consumption. Most public universities in Virginia, regardless of student population size, have a much stronger recycling network in terms of both accessibility and management. Many campuses offer free reusable bottles and tumblers, regardless of meal plan ownership or residency status. Some Virginia schools including George Mason University are simply still offering solely canned, not bottled, beverages in vending machines and cooler displays. 

The distribution of canned beverages rather than plastic is beneficial for various reasons, despite having lower profit margins for the university and its beverage contractors. While single-use plastic consumption has direct links to health risks including reproductive issues and cancer, aluminum cans do not carry the same harmful chemicals that are in most plastic bottles. Additionally, aluminum cans are 100% recyclable, but less than a third of plastic bottles get recycled and those which do are usually “downcycled.” Theoretically, one could drink a can of Pepsi, recycle the empty waste, and later get a new can of Pepsi composed of the exact same material; on the other hand, bottled Pepsi is almost always made of unused plastic, and will most likely become material for polyester clothing or plastic furniture–if it is recycled properly and not just tossed into a landfill, that is.

While it may be too late to change Pepsi’s beverage distribution policies on campus, now is the perfect time to advocate for greener practices at Longwood. Putting pressure on administration to develop and implement clear plans for increased sustainability is imperative; the community’s need for healthier and greener practices should be known by the university’s operators. Pepsi’s new contract starts August 1, and plans to take advantage of the company’s sustainability funding should at least be developed by then. Scan the QR code and sign the online petition to let Longwood know.