Campus Trash

Even though I have a car and there is a bus system, my main form of transportation around my college campus are my own two feet. Sure I have to leave my off campus apartment much earlier than I would if I drove but it also means I don’t have to search for a parking space or waste gas.

I love walking around my campus for a couple of reasons. #1: I’m getting exercise. I hate exercising (on land) because it’s painful and I don’t like to sweat. It makes me feel gross all over, inside and out. So walking everywhere is a good way to get my exercise in for the day. #2: I like to observe the changes going on around. Not only watch, but feel and smell these changes. I like feeling the temperature gradually change as it goes from the end of summer to fall to winter to spring. Yes I even walk during the frigid cold of winter. I like to watch the trees change colors, going from luscious green to vibrant reds, yellows and oranges in fall, to bare bone branches filled with blinding, crystalized snow in winter, to beautiful rebirth, sprouting new flowers in spring.

The one thing I absolutely don’t understand and hate about walking around my beautiful campus is the garbage that lays everywhere. It’s in the streets, on the sidewalks, in the ponds and fountains. I don’t get how people can treat the earth this way. We only have one planet we can inhabit and we humans are treating it as a giant landfill.

I know this isn’t a new issue but it still repulses me to see the plastic bags and cups everywhere I look, on every block, every street corner. It’s disgusting. It’s maddening and saddening to see the place that has so much beauty be ruined by Starbucks cups and McDonald’s wrappers. I mean, it’s one thing to throw certain foods on the ground, I saw a banana peel tossed into the grass, because they biodegrade back into the soil, but to throw cigarette butts and anything plastic is really uncool.

I guess this turned into a bit of a rant but come on! We only have one planet. We need to treat it well.

B.A.M!

DeLara Skye