Garbage: Everest in the Making
I don’t like to point out errors in the facilities here at Western, but sometimes enough is enough. In the picture below, located on the second level (I believe the third floor technically) of the Commuter Garage on the Midtown campus is a garbage can which has grown a tad too big for its britches.
The garbage reaches about a foot below the girl in the picture, who stands roughly 4’11” tall, so that puts this mound of garbage at about four feet tall. Four feet.
This has been like this for about two weeks now, which means one of two possibilities: 1) either maintenance has been negligent toward emptying these garbage cans for the past few weeks or 2) the commuters continue to pile garbage into the can each day, realizing that the can is full but can’t seem to wait to toss their Dunkin’ Donuts bags and coffee cups in a more vacant can.
Regardless of which of the two options is the truth, this is simply unacceptable. Maintenance is busy, I get it, but it only takes a few seconds to do a quick round of the Commuter Garage and see if the garbage cans are full and in need of replacement bags, and then maybe a few more minutes to actually get a bag and change it. My assumption here is that their other projects are taking up more of their time and checking garbage cans in the Commuter Garage is the last objective on their list of tasks to complete, but it’s off-putting to the commuter students, who make up nearly half or more of the population at Western, to see the garbage cans overflowing every day. It’s an easy fix and would aid in retention if cleanliness were maintained.
Should the issue be that people are filling the cans up to quickly, I know for a fact there are garbage cans on the lower end of the Commuter Garage where it connects to the Quad and even all around campus, at least one every fifty to one hundred feet, and that’s not counting the garbage cans located in the buildings themselves. Is it so difficult to carry your garbage a little longer and throw it in an empty can rather than loading more trash into an already full receptacle? Seriously, it’s not a big deal to carry it. Just be a Good Samaritan and help out the aesthetic of the school, whether you like it or not, it’s the same with the planet. Respect what we have, because it’s the only one we have.
I’m not writing this brief report to point fingers at anyone or to irritate people as they go about their busy lives, but I can’t be the only one who is not flattered to walk through a blanket of trash whilst entering the Commuter Garage. It’s our shared area, and if we take care of it, it’ll stay in good condition for some time to come. If not, then we’ll be trudging through stacks of garbage just like Wall-E soon.
