Clearly, You Should Bag Your Trash.

With the upcoming marathon tailgate - this weekend the parking lots open 12 hours before kickoff (8am) - there is going to be a lot of refuse on and about the Beaver Stadium area.

Trash has been a touchy issue at Penn State - Of course hundreds of thousands of people milling around for 12 hours (or more) is going to result in tons of trash - there's just no way to avoid it. There are those who will be appalled at the untidiness, and there will be those who marvel at the fact that it wasn't "worse". We'll see.

But what can we do to help the OPP in their quest to clear the cow pastures? The answer is clear.

Yes. Clear.

For your trash, use the clear plastic bags that are provided by the University (or any clear bags you may have yourself) - you'll find them (as well as the blue recycling bags) attached to dispensers and dumpsters throughout the parking/reserved lots. Don't put used propane canisters in with your trash; place them beside your trash pile or put them in the dumpsters yourself. Also, any odd sized trash (broken chairs, coolers, recliners, etc.) should also be put in the dumpsters. And, of course, use the clear(ish) blue bags for your recycling.

The reason for the clear bags is that when the trash collectors come along with their super efficient vacuum/compactor truck, if they can see through the bag (and assess its contents), they can just toss it into the vacuum - with an opaque bag, they have to tear it open to make sure that there are no non-compactable items (ie, propane canisters). Using the clear bags saves them a lot of time and reduces the amount of "ewww" they have to sift through.

And yes, it is better to bag up your trash, rather than just piling it up - because of the potential for wind.

We learned all of this helpful information while watching the OPP crew cleaning up the overnight RV lots - we had a pretty huge collection of trash - so we asked, what could we do to make it easier for them (that is, Mrs. TC asked).