Trashville: 1970

A day’s worth of garbage, piled high on the quad. A lapse in sanitation? A soft-sculpture installation?

No, the aim was education. In the weeks before the first Earth Day, on April 22, a campus group called the Ecology Coalition wanted Northeastern to think about how much waste it created.

One Tuesday late in March, beginning at 5 a.m., all the trash the university produced was thrown into a huge bin, which by 12:30 p.m. was nearly full.

A coalition spokesperson, Jeff Smith, E’70, told the Northeastern News the cafeteria’s switch to disposable paper trays, plates, and cups was a major cause of the trash explosion. The answer? “Recycling”—a relatively revolutionary concept.

“Our lifestyles are the real cause of pollution,” said Smith—a simple observation still not wasted many years later.