- The Record Archives
- Volume CXVIII, No. XXI - November 17, 2005 - opinion
Respect our campuses and put your trash where it belongs
Guest columnist
Litterbugs should clean up their act
By Abby Campbell
Guest columnist
You may or may not have seen him around campus.
He proudly sports a simple light blue T-shirt that reads, in black block letters: "I Litter."
He dons this shirt because he likes to get a rise out of people.
He actually works at the St. John's arboretum and of course does not support or partake in littering as his T-shirt might falsely lead you to believe.
I chuckle to myself every time he wears this shirt.
It's contradictory to his actions, but for many students on this campus it would be an accurate description of what they do.
People who litter irritate me.
On Sunday mornings, students see beer cans and bottles strewn about the grass.
Countless students carefully gather their books and backpacks to exit a classroom only to leave their plastic water bottles on the floor.
Riding the Link the other day, I was appalled to see a student wipe the tiny white cream cheese container clean with his last bite of bagel and stealthily flick the container under the bus seat.
And I've often seen students attempt to place banana peels or empty coffee cups into already overflowing garbage cans.
The small holes at the top spew trash like a volcano.
The banana peels or coffee cups, having nowhere to rest, fall to the ground.
Litterers shrug their shoulders and continue walking.
At least they tried.
What's going on here?
My most educated guess is that students are lazy.
Lazy?
But students spend countless hours in class, in labs and doing homework.
They're working hard all the time.
True, but being lazy in the classroom and lazy in cleaning up after yourself are two very different things.
I also believe students litter because CSB/SJU is a temporary home.
Students feel no obligation to keep our school environment clean because these campuses don't belong to them.
These are public spaces, with complimentary janitors and grounds crew members.
Students also don't feel bad about littering because they don't see who cleans up after them.
Student workers pick up pop bottles left on classroom floors, and they wipe their sticky residue off desks early in the morning or late at night.
By Monday afternoon, grounds crew members have collected all the cans and bottles that littered the grass after the weekend.
Litterers and those who clean up after them remain largely anonymous to each other.
Would you feel awkward knowing that the shy girl in your biology lab picks up your empty pop bottle everyday?
Or embarrassed that a grounds crew worker has to collect the beer cans you threw in the grass before mowing?
I don't litter because I value personal accountability.
Garbage belongs in a trash can and nowhere else.
I work with preschoolers everyday, and I never need to tell them where their paper cups and napkins go after snack time.
Competent college students, as we all are, should be held accountable for their studies, as well as their garbage.
This is the opinion of Abby Campbell, a senior French major at CSB. Contact her at accampbell@csbsju.edu.