Trash piles weren’t getting any smaller at a Dumpster outside Common 3 on Tuesday. The university removed the container’s move-in detritus Wednesday afternoon.
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When the university placed Dumpsters around campus during move-in days, many students were happy to have a convenient place to dump lots of trash. But when some of the overflowing trash bins were still occupying prime real estate more than a week later, not everyone was as pleased.
Empty boxes, bags containing expired food, an old bed sheet and a broken mini refrigerator sat in or around a dumpster outside of South Campus Commons 3 until yesterday afternoon, seemingly untouched for days. And as the trash continued to pile up, the rancid smell was building.
“It should’ve been dealt with at the end of move-in,” junior bioengineering major Rob Spetrini III, a Commons 3 resident, said of the Dumpster. “It’s the middle of the week — it shouldn’t be here.”
Commons Director Gina Brasty said the large waste containers were placed outside of the buildings during the apartment complex’s attempts to get the rooms ready for students and through the first two weekends of move-in, which ended this past weekend.
“We keep them there for opening so students can put their trash there in stead of in the trash chutes,” Brasty said.
Brasty said the Dumpsters have been set in place to deter students from disposing of large boxes, cement blocks and full-length mirrors down the trash chutes — items that have previously clogged the Commons trash chutes.
“When our staff go to unclog them, it presents a life safety hazard…because it can hurt and even kill somebody,” said Brasty. “Even when we hang signs, students don’t listen.”
Brasty also said a request was put into Facilities Management Monday to pick up the Dumpster, but the department had told Commons it couldn’t get to it before Thursday.
“They shouldn’t be there now and they’re not explaining to us why,” said Brasty. “We just determine when they will put them there…and be taken…and otherwise we are at their mercy.”
Mercifully, Facilities collected the trash bin early Wednesday afternoon, leaving only a few puddles of drained trash goo in its place.
-By Kara Rose