I’m writing this letter in response to the letter written by Peter Grotjohn and Motoko Maegawa that appeared in the May 1 edition of the Iowa State Daily.

The focus of their letter was concerning the amount of trash that is left on the parade route after the Veishea parade.

In their letter, Grotjohn and Maegawa stated, “After the parade ended and the crowd dispersed, all that was left from a great parade was just a mess of trash and many newspapers. The parade route looked like a garbage dump.”

I would definitely agree with Grotjohn and Maegawa that there is a considerable amount of trash that is left after the parade is over, and yes, the Daily accounts for a noticeable portion of this mess.

The reason I’m writing this letter is to let them, as well as the rest of the campus know that the Daily has taken a pro-active approach to any litter problems associated with the distribution of the Daily on campus.

Unfortunately, we do not have the power to stop people from making a mess of our campus.

Some people are not thoughtful enough to put their garbage in a waste can.

However, the Daily will be paying the Veishea committee a portion of the $500 cost of clean-up after the parade.

The Daily is concerned about the mess that may result from its day-to-day circulation as well.

The Daily pays the university $20 for each of its distribution sights located on campus (more than $1000 for the year).

This money, which will double next year, is paid to cover the clean-up costs of the Daily’s distribution throughout the year.

On top of that, our newspaper carriers recycle any old newspapers and debris that may exist at our points of distribution.

I would like to finish by saying that the litter that appears on our campus is not a direct result of the Daily’s existence.

The litter you see is a product of the apathetic person who left it there.

Bob Block

Iowa State Daily Student Retail

Sales Manager

Senior

Advertising