Throughout the summer we’ve seen an increase of trash items on the lawn areas of University Apartments. Items like masks, rubber gloves, plastic bottles, cups and newspaper circulars. Next to the garbage bins, discarded clothing items, bags of recyclables, card board pieces, and bags of garbage are left on the ground. Food pantry items are often left in boxes next to the trash bins, at bus stops and uncollected food items are left on the grounds in front of the Community Center.
Items left outside of the trash bins can be hazardous for all ages. In addition to being harmful to humans, it’s also hurts the animals. The items become available for animals to dig into and destroy, especially nocturnal animals. This leaves the garbage open and spreading throughout the grounds impacting all living areas.
We understand this may be in direct relation to not knowing how to use the trash and recycle bins as well as the impact of the summer move-out. Working together as a community, we’d like to encourage everyone to please help maintain University Apartments indoors and outdoors. Make sure you are properly placing trash items where they belong. There are trash bins in all living areas of University Apartments. In addition, we are a single stream recycling area. Be sure you are placing all recyclable items in the proper containers to avoid trash contamination.
Items allowed on the grounds next to the trash bins for discarding include metal, furniture, bikes, strollers and appliances only. Please review the University Apartments Storage policy for more guidelines here: https://media.housing.wisc.edu/documents/university-apartments/ua-storage-policy.pdf
For tips on how to properly recycle items and discard trash visit: https://www.housing.wisc.edu/about/sustainability/waste