UNM officials are applauding Mayor Martin Chavez's recent proposal to crack down on littering and say they are doing their part to remedy the city's trash problem by keeping UNM clean.
"UNM has what I consider an increasingly terrible problem with litter," said Gary Smith, associate director of UNM's Environmental Services Department. "With such a large number of people in such a small area as our campus, we accumulate large amounts of trash that are aesthetically unpleasing and cost the University huge sums of money to clean up."
Smith said that the litter problem on campus has reached such an extreme level that all 25 of his grounds crew employees have to spend two hours each day cleaning up trash across campus, at a cost of more than $8,000 a week.
"It sometimes seems that we are fighting a losing battle in keeping our campus beautiful due to the thoughtlessness of those that litter here," Smith said. "I applaud and respect the mayor for his efforts on ridding the city of this problem."
The mayor's proposal stipulates that the City Council approve a minimum fine of $150 for littering, but more importantly, he hopes to influence judges to order community service for litterbugs instead of a fine or in addition to one, said Deborah James, the mayor's spokesperson.
"We are privileged to live in such a beautiful area of the country," James said, adding that the mayor has similar programs in place to rid the community of graffiti and clean up areas such as Old Town and the Bosque. "We need organizations such as UNM to be our eyes and ears throughout the city to achieve our goal of keeping our city aesthetically pleasing."
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According to the Pathfinder, UNM's official policy handbook, littering is considered breaking the University's code of conduct and sanctions range from a verbal warning to denial of future University employment or admission, removal from campus, arrest or being barred from campus.
James Daniels, commander of the UNM Police Department, said that littering is considered a petty misdemeanor. He added, though, that he believes UNM's litter problem is under control.
"Quite honestly, this is one of the most clean campuses I have ever seen," Daniels said.
Daniels said he didn't have good figures on the number of citations issued on campus. Mary Vosevich, director of UNM's Physical Plant, said that UNM is the heartbeat of the city and when it is cluttered with garbage it does a disservice to both visitors and residents of the campus. She added, though, that she believes the University is doing everything it can to solve the problem.
"We are a 24-hour campus with an exorbitant amount of foot traffic, and with the amount of high wind that occurs in Albuquerque there is going to be trash out of its place," Vosevich said.
"It all boils down to the fact that we as a community need to make more of an effort to care about the campus that we live and work on," she said. "We are lucky to have such a beautiful campus. We need to take care of it for not only ourselves but for future generations of UNM."
