Midwestern State University student Trevor Hart was taking a walk around Sikes Lake and the amount of trash he saw in the water shocked him.
"Styrofoam, cups, pens, foil chip bags, I've seen wires, fishing wires," said Hart.
The student even saw animals on the lake surrounded by the waste. Hart was so disturbed that he quickly went home and started researching how trash could harm these birds.
He says, "A lot of information I found, they will swallow that plastic or plastic bags and that can make them feel full which leads to starvation and they're not even aware of that."
The lake is on the university's property so I reached out to Kyle Owen. He's the Associate Vice President for Facilities Services and he says ground keepers clean up the campus everyday but the lake is actually off limits.
"They don't go into the lake itself or below the edges of it to try and retrieve trash just because of the danger if you will of them falling in," said Owen.
Owen says they're also having a hard time keeping up with trash around campus because the ground's department is under-staffed due to budget limitations.
"We've looked into trying to put in some skimming device to keep it or minimize how much of it goes downstream but we haven't pursued that because mainly if there's any problems and it caused a flood that would not be good," said Owen.
Hart is putting together a proposal that might help out the school.
He says, "Maybe once a week take trash bags just a few of us and go around campus just picking up little trash that can accumulate into big piles."
Owen says the school already has events where students pitch in and clean up the campus, especially during the spring but he thinks Hart's idea would take cleaning efforts to the next level and he would fully support it.
Tanya De Jesus, Newschannel 6
