I attended the “Plastic State University: Reducing Single-Use Waste” deliberation on Friday February 22. Both mine and the other half of my class’ deliberations had a lot of similarities, including the size, almost universal agreement on the necessity of fixing the problem, and the set up/location of the deliberation.

Although both deliberations were on well known topics, single-use plastics tends to be treated as more of a scientific problem, while binge drinking is seen as more of a social issue. In creating an information base, it was more important for the plastics moderators to explain the science behind single-use plastics and eco-friendly programs at Penn State. Most people understand the inherent issues with binge drinking, so moderators for the drinking deliberation did not have to explain as much as in the plastics deliberation. The audience may have felt like they learned more from the plastics deliberation because the moderators had to create the information base that the binge drinking deliberation already had.

The plastics deliberation set up their deliberation to discuss a multitude of solutions, but the binge drinking deliberation discussed only three solutions. There was more creativity in the discussion of the plastics deliberation. Both methods of discussion fostered productive and informative conversations. The plastics deliberators discussion covered more topics, but the binge-drinking discussion was more focused.

In both deliberations the moderators made discussing the pros and cons very important. In the binge drinking deliberation students started discussing the cons too early in the conversation, but the moderators did a good job of trying to steer the conversation back to pros. The pros and cons sometimes overlapped; some people thought that the truth-style campaign, could be harmful and influence people to partake in embarrassing activities, while other people thought it would influence students to not embarrass themselves. So some people’s pros were other people’s cons and the tradeoffs were discussed (is it worth having this campaign if it may prevent some students from drinking, but may also encourage others to do embarrassing things). For the plastics, an interesting tradeoff/con suggested was that disabled people may need single-use plastics because it may be too difficult to have a green-to-go that they have to bring back to the dining commons.

The microphone made a difference in distributing speaking opportunities. Both deliberations took place in Webster’s and it was difficult to have a deliberation in a small space where it was relatively loud. I think that the microphone helped distribute speaking opportunities more for the plastics deliberation, because the moderators were able to pick who got the microphone and everyone had to listen to the person with the microphone. However, the microphone became too much of a hassle for our deliberation because of the cord and difficulty in getting it to everyone. Although I thought that without the microphone the binge-drinking moderators did a good job of distributing speaking opportunities, it was clear that the people in the front participated more than the people in the back. Most people raised their hands, and the people in the back did so less often. However, towards the end people stopped raising their hands, and on occasion someone would talk too much and it was difficult for the moderators to pick who spoke.

In both deliberations the moderators remained neutral during the discussion, while considering a range of ideas. In the plastics deliberation, for example, we spent a lot of time on the eco-coin. The delibertators built off of what others said, and many people talked about the eco-coin even though they had never heard of it before. It was clear that those in the discussion listened to what other people were saying, and had a genuine conversation rather than simply speaking for themselves. I think that this was also done in the binge drinking deliberation, especially when we spoke about disagreements between the community approach. The disagreements showed that students were listening and reacting to what someone else said, and then explained their point of view (deliberators argued over whether students will stop drinking if they see there are fun things to do besides drink, or if they are going to drink anyway).

In both deliberations everyone was respected. With binge drinking it was more important that people felt comfortable speaking about drinking or their experience with drinking culture. When one student spoke about Penn State’s Responsible Act Protocol, the deliberators did not judge her nor make her feel bad for sharing a personal story. There was no problem with respect in the plastics deliberation; everyone in the group showed that they care about the environment. To foster a good conversation, it is important that everyone feels respected. All of my classmates did a great job of making sure the conversation was respectful and productive.