Student volunteers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison gathered to remove litter after photos of post-party trash scattered on a frozen Lake Mendota circulated online.
What happened?
Per The Badger Herald, the UW-Madison Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity generally holds the Lily’s Classic fundraiser and hockey event on the ice each year to raise money for epilepsy research. This year, the event was canceled after SAE said it could not comply with UW administration requirements to address safety concerns.
Hundreds of people gathered at Lake Mendota to celebrate despite the event’s cancellation, but trash was left all over the ice, as was visible in online photos.
The Badger Herald reported that some volunteers showed up with trash bags after seeing the destruction and helped clean up the mess.
“The lake is part of our community, and covering it in trash just shows zero respect for the lake,” Hilary Dugan, a UW expert in lake water quality and lake ice, told The Badger Herald. “These are lessons to be learned … one bottle [might not] have a huge impact, but these build up and persist over time.”
Why is minimizing waste important?
Reducing waste can lower the amount of material that winds up in landfills and that escapes to our natural surroundings. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, there were more than 292 million tons of municipal solid waste generated nationwide in 2018. Of that amount, more than 146 million tons were sent to landfills…