Sunday, October 5, 2008

Those keg cups again


We have relatively few readers in the student population at Wesleyan University, but I'm guessing that a few of that enlightened body might take a simple message to a wider audience.

Exactly what are you thinking when you open your hand and drop your plastic beer cup where you happen to be standing, and where someone else will have to pick it up? Obviously not thinking. Perhaps inebriated. As I've said in this space before, at least at Wesleyan someone else will pick it up, just like your mom picked up after you at home. But why should someone need to be dispatched to clean-up your garbage?

This is a simple matter, and in no way has a great effect on the world, but the utter disregard for community, and for those who have to clean up after you, is in some ways emblematic of the way you look at the world.

Saturday night there was a party on my street (PSafe and MPD broke up the party which had spilled from an apartment and into the street, and apparently at least one party-goer was arrested, though MPD refused to release details about who was arrested, and on what charge). Sunday morning the street was strewn with blue and red cups, and empty amber Bud bottles and tallboy cans.

The mess will likely be gone tomorrow, though Pearl Street gets less attention than do streets closer to campus, but the impression remains that some Wes students can talk a great game about the environment until it comes time to find an appropriate receptacle for their waste.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Here, here...I'll drink to that.

And properly dispose of my cup afterwards, of course.

I've often considered the hypocrisy of drunken littering at night vs. environmentalism during the day. Not that this applies solely to Wesleyan students or even college students in general. Non-students of all ages are perfectly capable of doing the same.

It's ultimately about remaining consistent in thought and deed. And that is what becomes difficult (at best) when under the influence.