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An hour after the Michigan State-Notre Dame game starts, students linger in the tailgate area with plastic cups in their hands, oblivious to the stadium's thunderous roar. Silly smiles and belligerent conversations abound among the tailgate faithful. The trash on the ground around them reflects the carefree nature of the tailgating bash. Beer boxes, bottles and plastic cups clutter the ground as though a tickertape parade marched through. "No one knows who picks up after them and frankly no one cares," said Brian Weeks, an MSU sophomore social relations major. "It eventually gets picked up, and that's all that really matters." After drinking all morning before the big game, litter is the last thing on the mind of Ken Rewa, a senior general management major. |
 Experts say drinking lowers inhibitions that otherwise would keep some fans from littering. Photo by Patty Mallett. |
"You wanna know what it looks like around here when I leave?" he said. "You wanna know what it looks like? One big blur." Like tailgating, littering appears to be one of those inalienable rights on Saturday mornings on the Spartan campus. "Students throw trash everywhere, but they are OK with it because everyone else is doing it," said Amanda Berrington, a junior criminal justice major. "I think the problem with tailgaters is it's a lot easier for people who don't litter to look around and see everyone else doing it, so it's not a problem for them to litter." The behavioral explanations for littering are the same ones that apply to rioting, said Norbert Kerr, an MSU psychology professor. However, "in a riot situation you have a big problem. In a tailgate situation, you have a big mess." The moment students begin tailgating, their minds go through a process of justification so that they can litter even though they are trained to think it's wrong, Kerr said. The root of social behavior is the need to conform, he said. People will do the opposite of what is morally right because everyone else is doing it without repercussions. "It lowers your inhibitions and allows you to litter," he said. Drinking is the greatest force behind lowering these inhibitions, Kerr said. Still, even sober people tend to litter if the people around them do the same. One study found that people in parking garages tended to discard fliers on their windshields on the ground if there was already a lot of litter on the pavement. But if the parking garage was clean, people would take the flier with them before driving off, with the intention of throwing it away later. "So it's not a function of what other people are doing so much as seeing what people have already done," Kerr said. |
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MSU's litter issue is a small piece of a larger problem, said Jerry Gardner, professor emeritus of environmental psychology at U-M Dearborn. Litter is part of the "Tragedy of the Commons," an idea conceived in 1968 by famed biologist Garret Hardin, Gardner said. Hardin said that individuals take resources from and discard their waste into the Commons, a metaphorical area open to all of society. The "tragedy" occurs when the population gets so big that the Commons turns into a dump and its resources are depleted. Because everyone feels entitled to act like everyone else, the Commons will never be saved. In MSU's case, the Commons is the Saturday morning tailgate parties. Partygoers feel entitled to contribute to a collective tragedy. |
 Even with 400 trash cans available outside Spartan Stadium, many football fans can't be bothered to clean up after themselves. Photo by Patty Mallett. |
And like Hardin's assessment of the Commons, Gardner has a gloomy vision of the future of littering. "No matter what, you aren't going to get people to alter their behavior and drink less," he said. "It's just not going to happen." This football season, MSU tried to stem such raucous behavior by banning drinking games and prohibiting drinking from beginning earlier than five hours before the game. Before the measures took effect, it took MSU's grounds crew 239 man-hours to pick up after tailgaters after the Central Michigan game, 431 after the Notre Dame game and 203 after the Illinois game, according to Gary Parrott, MSU's grounds maintenance manager. After the rules took effect, the grounds crew spent 195 man-hours after the Minnesota game, 196 after the Ohio State game and 185 after the Wisconsin game. "The Ohio State game was a big surprise," said Parrott. "We expected it would be about the same as the Notre Dame game." But whether the less time spent on trash pickup was a result of the new alcohol policy is uncertain. The drop occurred as the weather cooled down and the idea of partying outside became less appealing. The real test of whether regulations translate into results will not be apparent until warm game days resume in fall 2005. "That's OK," said Rewa. "Five hours is plenty of time for us to tailgate. People might just take it back to their houses or the bars. Either way, it's not going to keep people from drinking and making a mess." |
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