Dear Maneater,
I travel around campus and surrounding streets on foot on a daily basis. For quite a while now I’ve taken to carrying a couple of used bags about my person so that I can collect pieces of trash that litter our campus. Very frequently there are discarded recyclable metal cans and plastic bottles dropped within a few yards of the myriad of recycling bins. I can easily fill one or sometimes two bags just on my walk from my office to my car. Of course some areas are worse than others. Stankowski Field and surroundings can be a dump. But generally far worse are the neighboring streets with student rentals and Greek houses.
I’m very disappointed in the attitude of some of our campus community. It simply amazes me that we have all been taught how important recycling is; yet some careless and immature individuals continue to litter our streets and public spaces.
Cigarette butts are also a huge problem everywhere. Even on campus that is still an issue regardless of campus smoking ban.
Do those responsible think that litter is a visual improvement to our campus? Are they really that lazy? Do they simply not care and believe that some other sucker like me will clean up after them? Littering of any kind is disgraceful, irresponsible and totally unnecessary behavior and it needs to stop.
— _Martin Wills, willsm@missouri.edu_