MSU students have found a new place to park bikes and store household items - the Red Cedar River.
This is what more than 65 students and volunteers discovered Saturday while cleaning up the river, campus and area parks as part of the Residence Halls Association recycling program’s Trash Bash and River Splash.
This was the first year the campus cleanup extended to the Red Cedar River in cooperation with Adopt-A-River and Friends of the Red Cedar River.
RHA Recycling Director Jennifer Chandonnet said Saturday’s cleanup effort was successful.
“We definitely planned well for it as far as supplies,” she said. “We more than doubled our normal participation. I was very happy with the turnout, and the beautiful day helped a lot.”
Chandonnet said 18 bikes were hauled from the river along with a couch and a gas grill. The number of volunteers pitching in also contributed to plans for a biannual river cleanup this fall, she said.
The amount and content of garbage pulled from the river drew mixed reactions from volunteers. Sarah Norris, an MSU Plant Research Laboratory employee, said students don’t make the best decisions with what to do with their bikes.
“I am kind of surprised,” she said. “I think alcohol helps people be stupid. Why else would you leave your bike in the river? Leave your bike on campus somewhere, leave it unlocked - (police) will take it.”
Student volunteers, such as pre-vet freshman Lee Mueller, said the way students treat the river reflects on the MSU community.
“The Red Cedar is our river - a good portion of it runs through our campus,” she said. “There is not just a campus connection, but a community connection to the river. No one wants to hang out where there is a lot of trash.”
Communication freshman Lindsay Havlick and and no-preference freshman Wendy Hawkins helped clean a popular tailgate site near the tennis courts across from South Complex. Both said the ground was still covered in garbage from last fall.
“Every 2 square inches was a beer-bottle cap or a cigarette butt. It was really bad,” Havlick said. “And we just stood there forever picking it up and picking it up.”
Hawkins said students don’t make enough of an effort to take care of campus.
“There is a good amount of people who can, but there are not enough who think about it enough to do anything about it,” she said. “They don’t even think about littering, they just do it.”
