The summer is coming. Do you separate waste in your home? If you don’t separate them well or abandon trash with food and drink in it, you might get in trouble easily. For example, insects like flies and ants will appear and a horrible stench will continue the whole day. Also, as the weather is getting hotter, the speed of spreading the stench is becoming faster, so separating waste is an essential thing in our daily lives. On the other hand, at the CAU campus where we go every day to take classes, do club activities, and walk with friends or drink alcohol? It is obvious that there are cleaners that the school has employed, but if students don’t their part, separating waste is very tough.

 

 

           Then why should we do this? Some students might think we don’t need to clean up the school because we pay tuition. However, it is essential for ourselves. School is the place that lots of people use and if it has problems, the people who get direct damage are the students. So, it is deeply related to us. Of course, we should improve the problems of separating waste and management of trash cans or installing more trash cans. But the most important and prior thing is to try to separate trash, which is divided into general trash, paper, plastic and so on. The current state of trash cans: Buildings of huge floating populations

 

 

           The school’s festival is finished and now it’s time to study for the term finals. Where do you usually study? Most students go to the library, which has outlets to charge smart phones, and provides spaces easy to concentrate on studies. CAU’s library is divided between the central library and the law school library. The problem is coffee that students drink not to sleep or delivery food that students eat when they are hungry. This causes serious problems, because they throw away the trash of food and drinks without separating them in the right way. First of all, the most controversial one is trash on the first floor of the central library. As you can check in the photo, you can see waste that people throw, not “in” the trash cans, but “on” the trash cans because, there is no space in the trash cans to put all the trash. Student council members who manage the library made a temporary measure to deal with the problem. They put some fake-flowers on the trash cans, and made other trash cans that people can distinguish the separation of plastic cups, cup-holders, and straws. But, actually, it is no use.

 

 

           The waste problems in the Student Union Building, which we call the red-brick building, are quite serious. Especially, it has become more of an issue since the school’s main clubs were relocated to the 2^nd and 4^th floors of this building. The club members usually deliver food and they barely throw away the waste. So it starts to pile up near the trash cans, and it leads to serious problems like bad odors. It gives unpleasant feelings to people who pass through those halls. Not only that, some club members drink alcohol, which is not allowed in the Student Union Building, and throw the glass bottles in the trash cans freely. It might cause drastic problems for other people who use the Student Union Building because of the debris. Especially, there is no elevator in the Student Union Building, which has lots of trash, making people who clean this building more tired and exhausted.

 

           CAU has a building that was built newly this year. It is a building that celebrates the 100th anniversary of CAU. The building’s number is 310, so people called it Building 310. It has lots of classrooms, elevators and trash cans. Unlike the Library and Student Union Building that were built many years ago, the formation and designs are cleaner and it has a better appearance. With the normal trash cans in the other old buildings, we must see what’s inside the trash cans without our will. However, with the trash can in Building 310, we don’t have to see it because they have a different design. We should pull the cover of the trash cans to throw away waste. However, there were amazing incidents in the new building. People throw green-colored soju bottle at the edge of the trash cans. Many people were surprised about this because it is very unscrupulous behavior not thinking about other people. It is surprising that people throw trash in the Building 310 trash cans, but we can see soju bottles are placed at the very edges of the trash cans. They look as if they are going to fall down soon. Also, even though people think of school as a passing place, the debris left behind may cause serious damage to other students or to the people who clean the building.

 

 

           So, what should we do to solve waste problems? First of all, the school’s facility parts need to change. Old trash cans should change and new trash cans need to be installed. Recently, there are lots of spots that are under construction. They should take care about not only the outside of the buildings, but also devise plans for solving the waste separating problems inside. Especially, the garbage cans in Building 310have little odor compared to other buildings. If the facility team changes garbage cans step-by-step, the burden felt by the people who clean the school will be less.

 

 

           We can find that there is lots of waste when we go back to our homes after studying in the late night. Some people take pictures about it and a few students have divided trash in the right way through separation. It is also the problem that there are not many trash cans where students can throw trash away. But the student’s recognition about this issue is the most serious problem. We should think about the people who clean up the messes that we make. We make messes and other people clean them up; it doesn’t make sense. We need to change our habits.

 

 

           People who dispose and manage all this waste are street cleaners. To find out more about the current situation of the waste cleaning problem, CAU interviewed one of the school’s cleaners.

 

1. Do students separate waste well?

 

No, they don’t separate waste well. For example, they throw away trash with food and drink remaining. Sometimes, I can find bottles of alcohol or plastic bags. In the plastic bags, there are lots of trash items that are combined together. Some of them have insect like flies. Also, if the school has special events like festivals, in addition to the periods of exams, the amount of trash gets bigger and it’s hard to manage all of it. If students throw trash in the correct trash cans, it would be better. Also, the trash cans in the washrooms are also serious problems. They throw away trash like coffee, chicken, milk, and alcohol in the washroom trash cans. It is really hard to clean up all of it. Even though it is our job to clean up the messes, sometimes it is really tough work to do, especially during special seasons.   

 

2. What kind of characteristics do you think Chung-Ang University students should have?

 

On behalf of the cleaners who clean the school, we want to ask a favor from students. Please separate waste and throw it away properly. We should separate them one-by-one. Also, separating waste and throwing away trash properly will make the trash cans cleaner. Not only that, please throw away trash without the remains of food or drinks in them. Not doing so even attracts mice and cockroaches to CAU.

 

           Up to now, we identified the problems of waste disposal and separating trash. In conclusion, both students’ and the school’s facility team’s efforts are needed. People should think that this school is our school and we need to protect it together and take care of it.