Keep community events green

May 7th, 2010 | By Staff Editorial | Section: Opinion

We would first like to thank everyone who took part in planning last weekend’s Selah celebration. Members from all areas of the Grinnell community came to enjoy great food, entertainment, inflatables, a petting zoo (yes!!!) and a beautiful day. The fun in the sun got us thinking that Grinnell should host more outdoor activities. Selah was obviously too expensive to replicate often, but Grinnellians would appreciate outdoor events even on a much smaller scale.

However, if Grinnell hosts more outdoor activities we would love to see more available water. There was water provided along with the food until 2 p.m., but people were outside in the hot sun all afternoon. Though students were able to get into dorms to access water fountains, community members enjoying the festivities were forced to buy water from vendors. Besides the lack of water and sunburns many people were toting the next day, there was one obvious drawback to this day of fun—come Sunday Mac Field was littered with the previous day’s debris.

Grinnellians are normally fairly environmentally conscious and traditionally clean up after themselves within a reasonable time frame. However, this party was not thrown by any one clear group, which meant that clean-up responsibilities could not be easily assigned. We feel a significant amount of this trash could have been avoided by simply placing more garbage cans around the field, especially around the inflatables where they seemed to be noticeably absent. Also missing was any sign of a recycling option, a wasted opportunity for an event heavy on plastics.

We love the idea of bringing Grinnell’s sense of fun to the outdoors, we just hope for future events to keep our hydration in mind and bring our green conscience along.