Years ago when I was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, a local friend threw some trash onto the street. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Let's find a trash can." But my friend answered, "No, in Mexico we do this so that the street cleaners have a job," and he gestured to the street cleaners. I didn't think much of it again until a more recent trip when I was in Avignon, France, when I went through the same conversation. My French friend bought a new pack of cigarettes, tore off all the outer plastic and the inner paper foil, and tossed it all onto the sidewalk beside him. "It's to give the street cleaners something to do," he said. "I understand that in the U.S., people don't throw their trash on the street."

But don't we? One morning, I passed an El Salvadoran groundskeeper on Rabb steps, crawling under a bush to retrieve trash. When people walk on the taped-down advertisements, the duct tape and the paper gets scuffed into mushy balls that get kicked under the shrubs or blown across the grass. "It's a lot of trash," I remarked to the man. "It's like this every day," he said. "Every day." Do we expect others to clean up our trash for us?

Granted, I've noticed this fall that there are not as many paper fliers taped to Brandeis paths and structures as there were last year. Thank you to whoever just wasn't inspired to photocopy 47 bazillion pages and use duct tape to shape them into the words "Oh Yeah" on the Rabb steps.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's really clever. I count myself among those who tramp up those steps a bit slower in order to figure out what has been spelled, and I walk slower past the bronze statue in front of the library, wondering what it looks like beneath the notices in white, blue and goldenrod 8 1/2 x 11s taped all over it.

But it's too wasteful.

To all you paper-wasters, find ways to minimize trash. For example, use sidewalk chalk; I love the chalk drawings and lettering. The advertising mouse pads on which event details are written are a great idea, especially if someone gets really creative. Some groups have discovered the free myBrandeis banners and TV advertising. Yes, you too can have your ad on that TV in Shapiro.

It seems like there are a lot of good ideas out there that could help us protect our environment a little more. I, for one, would totally help someone clean their stuff up after an event.

And consider this: As fun as it is to ride a cafeteria tray down the hill at the library, wouldn't it be just as much fun to ride $5 plastic sleds down that same hill? The trays leave so much trash once they inevitably smash and get buried under the snow.

There are more trash-conscious options out there. We are only limited when we don't stop to think about what we're doing.