
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.

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.