The Facts:
The campus has been covered by record amounts of pollen this week; Wednesday’s level was 3,524 pollen grains per cubic meter.
Our Opinion:
As bad as the pollen is, it will soon be swept away by spring showers. The litter and other campus pollutants, like cigarette butts, will remain unless students and the entire University community make a real effort to eliminate them.
Raleigh’s pollen count hit the highest level in recorded history Wednesday with 3,524 pollen grains per cubic meter. The trees released their wrath on the campus — it was anything but good. Students and faculty alike have walked about sneezing, with running noses and blood-shot eyes this week, due to nature’s version of a hot and fast, reproductive romance.
There’s not much students can do about pollen, though Thursday night’s thunderstorms may help a little in that department. But, we can clean up the rest of campus.
When the tree pollen finally clears in a couple weeks, the campus will return to its normal self; its normal litter and cigarette-butt covered self.
The University consistently ranks well in sustainability competitions and recyclable collecting with programs like WE Recycle, but we still struggle with some basic littering issues. A walk around campus — or worse, its fringes — easily exemplifies this problem and shows the necessity for some basic campus renewal.
Service Raleigh and other programs like it during the year are great steps to keep these problems down, but they shouldn’t have to be solutions. Students and the University administration must make a better effort to facilitate the cleanliness of campus in its most basic sense.
It you’re smoking a cigarette — 25 feet from the nearest building, of course — make an effort to put the butt in one of the receptacles; if one isn’t readily available, request one be put there.
If you see trash lying on the ground, don’t just walk over it as if you hadn’t seen it. Pick it up and make an effort to do something good for your community.
Large campus beautification projects are long and complex processes, which often require years to flesh out. Cleaning up the campus doesn’t take nearly the same amount of time.
The awful yellow sheet on the ground will be gone soon, but the litter in students’ midst won’t unless they make an effort to be the change.
