The morning began the way most Thursdays in Westsyde begin this month, with the small, ordinary rituals of taking care of where we live. I rolled the recycling bins to the curb (it is recycling day pick up in the area). There is something quietly hopeful about putting your recycling out on the right day. It is a small promise we make to the place that holds us. I will take care of what holds me.
From the curb in Westsyde to the TRU Horticulture Gardens is not a long drive, but on Trash Bash morning it felt longer, the kind of drive where you arrive already part of something bigger than yourself. The Gardens, on the 29th annual Trash Bash, had been transformed by the TRU Sustainability Office into a headquarters of clean-up Kamloops. The blue Thompson Rivers University banner hung over a table laid out with gloves, garbage pickers, bags, and maps. Plates and chafing dishes waited under the pavilion for the lunch that would follow. Everything ready. Everyone welcomed.
And there, in the middle of all of it, the most caring members of the TRU community, the people who, year after year, make sure this campus is the most beautiful for everyone. You can recognize them by the small, generous gestures: the extra pair of gloves offered without asking, the patient explanation of where each team is heading, the laughter that signals we are glad you came. The Sustainability Office is not just an office. It is a circle of care that makes the rest of our work possible.
Our part of the EDSW team gathered, Mullai, Ada, Sofi, and I, four pairs of eyes trained by social work and education to see. We also know there were more members around the campus. To notice. To not look away. We took our area near the Science Building and began.
It is a strange and tender thing to bend down again and again to pick up what other people have left behind. You learn the geography of carelessness: the corners where wind gathers wrappers, the bushes that hide what someone hoped would disappear. We found socks (more than one, how does this happen?), snack packaging from late-night study sessions, paper coffee cups that once held the caffeine of someone trying to finish an essay. We found a parking ticket, $100 due, lying in the grass. I hope, sincerely, that it was paid. I hope the person who received it had a better week after.
And here, gently, is the lesson, because we are at a university, which means we are all still learning:
A parking ticket in the grass is not just litter. It is a small lesson left undone. The deer who wander our campus do not know that paper isn’t food. They will sniff it, nudge it, sometimes chew. The wind will carry it further than anyone intended. And next May, someone will bend down and pick it up again. There is a better path: recycling. Tickets, snack wrappers, coffee cups with the lid and sleeve separated, most of what we found today belongs in a blue bin, not in a bush. Put recycling where recycling belongs, and the deer can go back to being deer, and the ferns can grow without a coffee cup wedged in their roots.
This is not scolding. This is the heart of sustainability education: we live on one planet, and everyone is responsible. Mother Nature should not have to hold what humans have not yet learned to properly dispose of. And learning, real learning, takes time. It takes patience. It takes someone showing you, kindly, where the recycling goes and why it matters.
After our final check at the Population Health building with Mullai, Ada, and Sofi, I had to slip away before lunch and the group photo. Student meetings were waiting, and so was my evening Educating for Social Change class, which felt, in its own way, like the right place to carry the morning’s lesson forward. A Trash Bash is not only a clean-up. It is a curriculum. The bag of wrappers and tickets and coffee cups we filled is also a lesson plan: what we leave behind, someone else has to pick up. What we teach today shapes what tomorrow’s campus looks like.
So thank you. Thank you to the TRU Sustainability Office for hosting us for the 29th year. Thank you to Mullai, Ada, and Sofi for being the most thoughtful teammates anyone could ask for. Thank you to every staff member, student, and faculty colleague who showed up with a garbage picker in hand and stayed for the burgers I had to miss.
And to everyone reading this, if you see someone who has not yet learned how to dispose of their trash properly, teach them. Gently. The way a good neighbour teaches. The way a good teacher teaches. We are all still learning, and that is the most hopeful thing about being human.
Keep sharing your knowledge. Keep bashing the trash. Keep educating about sustainability. One planet. One campus. One community.
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