To the Editor:
As a Keeney Quadrangle ex-resident/survivor, I read Deniz Ilgen's '13 column ("Brown: clean campus?" Sept. 8) with all too much familiarity with the Keeney scum she described, from dangling exit signs with eviscerated wires to someone passed out in the corridor in his own vomit. My friends and I are indeed offended by such inconsiderate slobs. Ilgen rightfully calls for a thoughtful and observant approach to property management. I, however, seek more concrete solutions for facilities maintenance.
I see students performing origami as they attempt to stuff take-out boxes into the awkwardly shaped cans outside before shrugging and walking away from the mountains of garbage. Clearly, they make an effort to contain their trash, but they physically cannot. This isn't an issue of not bothering; it's one of inadequate infrastructure. Likewise, at the Gate and the new Blue Room, plates and boxes are too large to fit into mysterious countertop holes. Thus, the University should rethink the design and implementation of its trash receptacles and their storage capacity.
Sustainable Food Initiative and Brown EcoReps already do important innovative work in waste control, and I'm a big fan of the Sharpe Refectory's new trayless option. Another neat idea is providing rooms with separate recycling buckets for paper and plastic (or allowing interested students to pick up an extra one) so that emptying recycling into the appropriate larger bins doesn't require manually sorting through old bottles and newspapers. Perhaps we need to consider ashtrays, not to promote smoking, but to reduce litter from people who already and will continue to smoke and would otherwise flick their cigarette butts to create a solid layer of debris (I'm looking at you, Keeney heater).
For all this trash-talking, there will be individuals who just always refuse to properly dispose of their refuse. But for those of us who aren't so persistently careless, the University must examine how to make it easier — the desire is already there — to keep our campus clean and beautiful, the way Brown should be, and so a little bit easier for our dedicated custodians to do their jobs.
Kathy Nguyen '13
Sept. 9
