Over spring break my roommate and I decided to do a litter sweep at our apartment building. We had noticed that even though the maintenance crew routinely cleans at the apartments, there was still constantly trash laying around the parking lot, stairwell, by the dog park, and by the dumpster. The trash by the dumpster is the most annoying to me. It is right next to the place where you are supposed to put your trash, yet there were all kinds of litter sitting all over the ground and not in the dumpster or the recycling bins. For the sweep, we took two bags, one for trash and one for recyclables. We both wore gloves and my roommate was the one who wrote down our observations. We started out by walking around the parking lot area and collecting trash. In this area we found typical trash that was most likely things people had in their cars such as plastic and Styrofoam cups, food wrappers, napkins, straws, and aluminum cans. We also found many unused plastic dog poop pickup bags on the ground. There are many dog pick up areas around the apartment buildings. All the areas have trash cans and a dispenser for these plastic pick up bags. We found most of the unused bags laying near the trash cans. After sweeping the parking lot area we walked around the inner court yard and the pool. In this area we found plastic water bottles, aluminum cans, paper towels, and plastic straws and cups. The last area we swept was the area around the dumpster and by the dog park. This is actually the area we found most of the trash we picked up. In this area, we picked up water bottles, plastic cups, food wrappers and containers, paper towels, and plastic wrap. Also in the area by the dumpster there were 3 large garbage bags sitting on the ground. This is frustrating because since they were not in the dumpster they would not have been picked up by the garbage truck. Bags sometimes sit by the dumpster for weeks without being thrown into the dumpster. I am not sure why no one just picks it up when they take their own trash but I always try to do it if I see any sitting outside the dumpster. The bags were full of all kinds of trash including things that could have been recycled. We sorted through the bags as best we could and removed some of the recyclable items and we threw the rest of the garbage in the dumpster. The most surprising thing that we found all over the apartment complex was cigarette butts. While normally this would not be a strange thing, our apartments are a non-smoking community. If you are caught smoking on property they can fine you $1,000. However, we found cigarette butts laying on the ground in many places. Doing this litter sweep showed me how much pollution people can create in a small place. We picked up all this trash but this was after maintenance had already come through and cleaned the property. Picking up your trash does not take much effort and can make a big difference in how a place looks. I wish more people realized how harmful just dropping their trash on the ground and walking away can be. This makes me think about what we discussed in class that because people are not seeing the consequences of their actions when they are doing it, they don’t care. Dropping their trash on the ground means nothing to them at that moment, so they continue to do it.
