10 September 2019
The Scribe
CSU Fort Collins and CU Boulder students are hypocritical. CU can relish in their win over CSU but neither school can overlook the chaos their fans left behind at the Mile High Stadium. Both universities claim to support and prioritize sustainability and being stewards of the Earth, yet when it comes to this football game, they acted like barbarians rather than college students.
Videos of the littered parking lot surfaced on Twitter and a slew of angry tweets and subtweets followed. One video shared by @miguel_angel303 was captioned: “You pieces of f****** sh** bro. The CSU vs CU Boulder community is fu***** a**. My friends and I filled up the bags we had but it was NOTHING to what was out there, you pieces of human garbage. F***. Every. Single. One. Of. You.”
One user wrote in reply, “Funny how more than likely all these people tweet ‘save the planet’ and ‘don’t litter’ but won’t even pick up their mess.”
This user’s observation is not far from the truth.
According to affordablecollegesonline.org, 86 percent of CSU students say that sustainability matters to them. CSU has an 85.9 rating according to The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS), a self-reporting platform where colleges and universities can track their progress in going green.
According to colorado.edu/sustainability/, 92 percent of students state that it is important that CU Boulder has a strong commitment to environmental sustainability. 40 percent of students report they chose CU in part, because of its sustainability reputation.
How much does sustainability really matter to these students if a sea of debris is the result of a Friday night football game?
Friday night’s lights led to extensive Saturday all-day clean up. Potentially most upsettingly, both universities’ have standing commitments to sustainability within their respective communities. However, in an interview with MSN, a clean-up crew member said this about the game, “This is chaos compared to a Bronco game. These kids got wild.”
The clean-up that lasted well into Saturday evening, resulted in the so much unnecessary waste. And no, the Mile High clean-up crew did not recycle, but here’s the thing; it was not their responsibility. The students and community members who recklessly left the mess are responsible. The point is not to point fingers at one school or the other. But as college communities who claim to be so environmentally aware, both schools should release a statement and potentially be responsible for paying fines in violation of their own school beliefs.
Universities, namely CU and CSU, need to start practicing what they preach. It’s a sad day when you cannot rely on the informed young adults who grew up learning and are currently learning the detrimental effects of humans on the planets, to clean up after themselves. We are the generation that will see these effects. We cannot afford to be hypocritical.