Students Pitch in for a Cleaner Broadway
Tulane student organizations are pitching in to make the uptown campus boundary of Broadway Street a cleaner area by paying for a dozen new permanent trash receptacles and a service to empty them regularly.
Installing the new trash receptacles along Broadway are Demian Weidenhaft, left, and Tracey Boudreaux from Tulane facilities services. (Photos by Guillermo Cabrera-Rojo)
The project is just one part of a “cleaner Broadway” program launched this spring by the university and its students.
The 12 new receptacles along Broadway Street are part of a student-initiated program to keep the street clean.
“Tulane is really proactive about being a good neighbor,” says Karen Celestan, manager of community relations and policy. “And young people who live on Broadway are very concerned about trash and cleanliness.”
Members of Tulane's sororities and fraternities, who were often blamed in the past for excessive litter in the neighborhood, “came up with the whole cleanup Broadway initiative,” Celestan says.
A sorority member identified the lack of trash cans as a major problem. As a result, 12 black metal trash receptacles with the Tulane shield logo have been installed along Broadway between Willow Street and St. Charles Avenue.
Each of the seven sororities at Tulane paid for one can, and the Undergraduate Student Government paid for the remaining five, at a total cost of nearly $11,000, says Liz Schafer, director of fraternity and sorority programs. The USG also is paying for the special cans to be emptied three times weekly this summer and five days a week this fall.
“While no one was asserting that only fraternity and sorority members litter, our students decided to take the lead on addressing this major campus and neighborhood relations issue,” Schafer says.
Shafer and Celestan worked through city government red tape to purchase city-approved trash cans similar to those downtown and along St. Charles Avenue.
In addition, all members of Greek organizations at Tulane began paying a per-semester fee starting in the spring, and part of the fee will go toward a regular litter pickup at their residences by Tulane facilities services crews.
“Students are really to be commended for taking the initiative and putting up the money,” Celestan says. “It will benefit the entire neighborhood.”
