To the editor,
I was rather angered by the Nov. 30 Staff Editorial entitled "CAS must replace garbage receptacles in top floor of MJ." I work in the dish room almost every day at MJ, and although garbage cans would be nice up there, I thought the reasoning was totally absurd. Our managers have discussed putting garbage cans upstairs. However, one of the reasons they're not there is because students have the tendency to throw dishes away, no matter where they are located, and this tendency would only increase if they are located further away from the dish room. I find several dishes in the garbage cans right outside the window to the dish room as it is! Then we get student complaints about shortage of dishes, in particular our recent shortage of forks (which has now been taken care of).
The article mentioned putting covered garbage cans in so dishes can be placed on top, however there are several different forms of dishes and there just wouldn't be enough room to stack dishes on them. Not to mention all of the MJ employees are usually so busy that they don't have time to run dirty dishes downstairs. It's not that far of a walk to go down the stairs to the dish room, and if the student has something small (such as a "lowly taco wrapper") then there are garbage cans right outside the front doors.
Yes, another garbage can would be more convenient, however it is not a necessity. If students have a problem with the cleanliness issues, then they wouldn't have a problem with walking to a garbage can.
-Jacquine Lathrop
MJ dish room worker
Editor's note: since the publication of the editorial, a garbage receptacle has been placed on MJ's top floor.