Keep Eastern’s campus clean

Staff Editorial

There is a lot of trash on this campus.

To be fair, that can be used as one heck of a metaphor for a lot of things on campus, but for now we are talking about actual trash like bottles and plastic cups and the occasional condom wrapper floating delicately in the wind.

Yesterday, we published a story on a student who picks up trash when he walks to class or goes anywhere else on campus.

He said he does it because he just likes seeing a clean campus.

This poses a very serious question: Don’t the rest of us want to see a clean campus?

Now, now we are not here to point blame at the fact that the university laid off groundskeepers or blame the university for being short staffed and so on and so forth.

We have plenty of time to blame the university for other things if that’s what we want to do.

Though it is true that there are a limited number of workers to help clean the campus in general, it should not be left entirely up to those workers to pick up our trash.

We are all responsible for contributing to the accumulation of trash on campus by tossing things out of car windows, throwing the paper straw wrapper on the ground, attempting to throw something out, missing and just walking away or even just leaving trash on top of the trash can and not throwing it away.

We all need to lend a helping hand, literally, and bend over and pick up the plastic cup or the piece of paper instead of just walking over it.

There are so many problems in this world that pertain to trash and littering and not recycling, so we should take the opportunity to do something about it.

Will it change the world’s trash problem and recycling problem? No but it will make our campus look decent and thus attract more students and ta-da boost enrollment.

It only takes one person to start something, and we think it’s pretty cool that the student picks up trash.

However it’s sad to say that something that should be considered as “doing the bare minimum” is now considered as “being a trendsetter” because no one else does it.

That’s why there’s a challenge called the #cleanupchallenge that encourages people to pick up trash and clean certain areas, because no one does it.

This challenge is being shared all over social media and has positively affected numerous places, but don’t make this a trend that dies the minute a new “challenge” arises like the #drinkwaterchallenge.

These are things that shouldn’t be challenges in the first place.

Stop complaining that it’s some one else’s job and pick up the trash, especially since it’s getting warmer outside and the snow can’t hide the trash anymore.