People from all over the Midwest came to La Crosse this past weekend to celebrate the 58th Oktoberfest. Many celebrators often attend the Oktoberfest Grounds located in downtown La Crosse, but those who attend the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse typically choose to celebrate at home resulting in an abundance of litter strewn throughout the city. 

Luckily there were several organizations at UWL that chose to meet and host an event to help with the litter clean-up. This included Laux Hall, Alpha Phi, and Students for Sustainability; a campus organization for students who wish to get involved with and learn more about environmentally friendly practices. 

The organization held a clean-up event on Sunday Sept. 30th for any UWL student or community member to partake in. Participants were to meet at the Hoeschler Tower on campus at 1 p.m. and help collect trash until 3 p.m. An average of thirty students showed up to help. These students spent their time cleaning between Pine St, Vine St, and State St making their way towards downtown.  

Madelynn Makinster, senior at UWL and the president of Students for Sustainability, stated in an email interview that the garbage the group collected were mostly cans. Students for Sustainability are going to take the cans to a local recycling center for money as a fundraiser for their organization. 

Makinster wrote, “We know that lots of people are observing where their trash lands over this exciting weekend and tend to forget the negative impacts of littering.” During the three-hour clean-up event, Students for Sustainability collected about 50 bags of trash found on the three streets they went down. The bags that were used were of biodegradable material.  

Makinster stated that the main goal of Students for Sustainability “is to clean the community we live in…We also want to be good role models and have people think ‘if they can do it, I can do it!’”  

Students for Sustainability doesn’t want the conversation regarding the clean-up of La Crosse to start and end with their post-Oktoberfest clean-up even though as Makinster writes, “this clean-up was  extremely important because Oktoberfest is such a big event in the community.” 

The organization hosts several events a year. On Sept. 12th they packaged uneaten food from Whitney Dining Hall and sent what they had packaged to the local Hunger Task Force in La Crosse. Students for Sustainability also do another large clean-up on Earth Day in the spring.  

If one wants to get involved or receive more information, they can join UWL Students for Sustainability’s page on Facebook or attend one of their meetings on Tuesdays at 7p.m. in 1401 Centennial Hall.