By Myara Gomez
Staff Writer
With illegal dumping becoming a large issue in the Trenton community, Bonner Scholars came out to support the cleanup of two heavily impacted sites on Feb. 3. TCNJ Bonner Scholars and the Neighborhood Improvement Association partnered together for this cleanup, along with co-sponsors from the Environmental Club and the Collegiate Recovery Community.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, illegal dumping refers to when waste is left in “unpermitted areas,” which could be either public or private property.
There were a total of 16 volunteers present at the cleanup, allowing it to go fairly quickly. The original plan was to clean up one site, located in Morton Alley (between Monmouth and Chambers Streets). However, after finishing early, the volunteers decided to go to another site, which was located in Agnes Alley.
“This was just spontaneous, one of the guys said they had another site for us to do and sometimes we do get done early and we have another site that we can do, but if it’s not too big we can do it in one day,” said NIA Vice President Aziz Bey.
This is not an easy task due to the amount of items that volunteers have to pick up and put into a dumpster.
Students were warned to be cautious. If they came across syringes or anything sharp, they were instructed to call over a member of the NIA. The director of the Bonner Institute, Althia Muse, said that volunteers came across various items like tires, doors, glass, rugs, plaster, toilets and even appliances.
(Photo by Myara Gomez / Staff Writer)
“The majority and the bulk of this waste comes from small business owners or individuals who are doing construction work out of town and looking for a cheap and illegal way to get rid of their waste,” Muse said.
Instead of paying a fee and leaving unwanted materials in a landfill, they avoid this through dumping illegally. It has been a challenge to combat this issue in Trenton, but recently law enforcement have begun installing cameras to help deter people from doing this.
“The economy of this makes no sense to me,” said Bernard McMullan, the president of Trenton Council of Civic Associations. “The amount of money, for example those tires, the amount of money you had to pay to put them into a truck, then to bring them out here, and put them against the risk of seeing you doing it, versus paying three dollars per tire to dispose of them, makes no sense.”
While the City of Trenton initially did not assist the NIA, they have been helping significantly in recent years. The founder of the NIA, Octavia Sutphin, believes it is due to the new administration.
The NIA first started their illegal dumping campaign through the Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP wanted three cities to imitate the state’s “Don’t Waste My Open Space” campaign. Sutphin said the City of Trenton seemed excited at first, however, the city decided in the end that they wanted this project to be “community driven.” The NIA decided to take this issue into their own hands and start the campaign.
Sutphin went on to say that the new administration under Mayor Reed Gusciora has provided a lot of essential materials for them to do these cleanups. The NIA has cleaned over 200 sites since the start of this campaign. These same sites have been worked on since the NIA began their focus on illegal dumping around 2010. “Some of these streets we have done ten, twenty times, you know, repeatedly,” Sutphin said.
The NIA has a lot of support from outside volunteers, including McMullan, Naeem Muse, a staff member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community School, and Marwan Malloy, a devoted community member that was aware of the dumping issue and wanted to help out. Even the East Ward City Councilman, Joseph Harrison, was present to assist with the cleanup on Saturday.
Students were able to learn from these volunteers about the illegal dumping issue. The waste issue is concerning and can even be discouraging for families.
“It just leads to people saying it’s okay if I don’t fix up my house, it’s depressing for my children, it’s depressing for me,” McMullan said.
(Photo by Myara Gomez / Staff Writer)
The purpose of these cleanups is to instill hope into the Trenton community by picking up the large garbage that is left behind. Sutphin also mentioned that the NIA takes care of larger-scale items that are dumped, not smaller trash like litter.
“People need to know how different illegal dumping is from litter,” said Environmental Club President Bryan Wood, a senior biology and secondary education major. “Tires, trucks, mountains of trash and debris are left in someone’s backyard because some company didn’t want to pay a landfill fee…My fear is that people would assume the dumps are a character statement for these neighborhoods, but it’s not. It’s a crime being purposefully perpetrated against low income communities and communities of color.”
Illegal dumping can be combated if everyone is made aware of this issue and gets involved. TCNJ Bonner Scholars and the NIA have a long-standing relationship because of Bonner alumnus and current business administrator of the NIA Lauren Wasserman. This was a part of her legacy project when she was a student at the College. If a student is interested in volunteering with Bonner and the NIA, they can contact bonner@tcnj.edu.
