Q: Why are the large garbage and recycling bins outside, behind the kitchen area, not covered?  It seems like a lot of trash blows out during the day and night allowing trash to go all over the campus (especially in the area of the medical clinic).  

This is a great question as this is one of the many challenges the Kansas wind brings us. These dumpster originally came with lids, however these lids are engineered to be easily opened and closed and therefore are very light. This causes them to flap around in the wind and bang open and close on windy days and nights. This has caused disturbance at night to those residents living above this area and defeats the purpose of having lids on the dumpsters. It was decided not to use the lids any longer. Our Environmental Services Team has explored other options such as having the lids permanently closed and using the small sliding doors on the front of the dumpsters or using smaller dumpsters that are emptied more often. Both of the options would compromise the safety of staff and residents using the dumpsters and docking area and would increase our trash service cost by several thousand dollars a year. So from an ergonomic, safety and financial standpoint we didn’t feel these options were viable. We can, however, increase our awareness of the issue and boost conscious efforts to look for trash that may be blowing around in the area so we can maintain it before it gets out of hand.

Additionally, remember to be extremely careful when out in this Kansas wind. Recently we’ve had gusts of over 50 miles per hour.

Thank you for yet another great question and as always, keep them coming!