A recent front page of the Wesleyan Argus featured a story about a student fined $219 for flinging a Sour Patch Kid into the street (“Bitter end: Sophomore fined $219 for throwing candy,” April 8, Volume CXLIII, Number 38). Just for a piece of candy. Well, I’d like to applaud the Middletown police officer that wrote the ticket.
I have a revolting weekly ritual: I walk up and down High Street from my home to the outskirts of campus, a good half mile out of my immediate neighborhood, to pick up trash on sidewalks and by the road. I do this because I don’t like seeing garbage in my community. Simple as that. So quietly, I pick up after people like this student, dodging traffic and amassing bags of gag-inducing trash. I have picked up used condoms, hundreds of plastic cups and, yes, candy wrappers. Of course the litter doesn’t all come from students — there are plenty of locals or commuters with no qualms about tossing fast food containers from their car windows. But students do contribute. Littering triples during the academic year.
In the story a witness said, “There was no crime.” I believe there was.
Littering is a crime. It’s appalling, and the student should be ashamed, not indignant. He may be an ill-mannered transient biding time at the University, but Middletown is the community in which I live and if this person’s penance was a little verbal abuse and a hefty fine, so be it. I hope he learned a lesson…perhaps something even more valuable than his overpriced Wesleyan education. Something about what it is to be a considerate member of a community.
Besides, this kid probably doesn’t have to worry too much about that fine. I’m sure he (or more likely his parents) can afford it. Ultimately, it’s Middletown residents who pay.
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