Alfred smiles so warmly his eyes seem to shut. His traditional garb is a lacy house dress and slippers, and he wears his key on a ribbon around his neck. At first glance, he seems far from scheming, cunning, and manipulation. However, he is the puppet master.
Alfred is the environmental health and sustainability coordinator. He manipulates our supply of dishware, utensils, and waste receptacles. He is a propaganda master and designs incredibly incisive fliers for our education and viewing pleasure .
With the compost bins, he takes half of them out of rotation and secludes them in the recycling area adjacent to the kitchen’s back door. He appropriates them for non-use by surrounding them with a barricade of e-waste and cardboard boxes. Now there are two tall boys and one half bucket in rotation, and that makes them easier to clean because there are only the three. Also, they fill up faster, and kitchen cleaners must empty them instead of just grabbing another one from the line up.
“Cleanliness is sustainability” is the motto on a self-portrait of Alfred on top of his soap box. It takes energy to clean up messes, and once food 
settles it gets crusty and takes more soap, water, and time to clean. Whatever you’re doing in the kitchen, whether it is cooking for yourself or dinner for the whole co-op, doing a food-prep shift, or even the dishes, all these tasks can be done in a way that minimizes mess, or in a way that makes more mess. "A clean hippie is an eco-friendly hippie".
Alfred selectively introduces and sequesters our dishware and utensils. He is not often caught in the act, but occasionally we will discover a stockpile of bigger plates and utensils hidden away in an unused closet. As time progresses, our dishware becomes smaller and smaller, allowing less food per plate. Only child-sized forks are purchased, but we have an endless supply of chopsticks. The rationale behind this is that smaller plates and chopsticks forces us to eat slower, instead of gobbling vast quantities of food. When we have big plates, the food looks so delectable that it is difficult not to pile high. However, the human stomach is a fixed size. Going back for seconds is better than taking huge firsts and forcing your stomach to stretch.
Also, Alfred despises soup. He inflicts wrath upon dinner cooks who serve soup, because then bowls and spoons must also be used, creating more dirty dishes.
Alfred is the hidden Hand that controls. Once you find out is your puppet master, you still can't blame him for it. The way that he clasps his hand together and smiles, you know that he is behind our dearth of man-sized dishware, but we all know that his intentions are for sustainability.
