Trash Afoot After Splendor in the Sky

The Cal State Northridge football stadium looked like a dump site Sunday morning.

Trash was everywhere--on the field, in the stands and in the parking lot. To football player and senior psychology major Christopher Hughes, it was all in a day’s work cleaning up after the big Fourth of July fireworks celebration. Well, almost all in a day’s work.

“Now that just cuts it right there,” said Hughes, 23, his face wrinkling with disgust as he came across a discarded dirty diaper along the west sideline.

“If you’re a mother, you clean up after your kids, wipe them up and put the diaper in the trash. You don’t just lay it on the ground.”

Hughes’ disapproval aside, it was a routine day-after-the-big-day cleanup, when the splendor in the sky yields to the litter in the grass--tons of uneaten food, wrappers, cups and other debris.

Two-hundred trash containers were placed throughout the facility, but they proved inadequate to their assigned task. All were full or overflowing.

“Maybe we’ll go with 300 trash boxes next year,” said Dick Pearson, operations director of “Valley of the Stars & Stripes Fireworks Spectacular.”

The event, sponsored by the CSUN Athletic Department and the Chatsworth/Porter Ranch, Granada Hills and Northridge chambers of commerce, drew a crowd of 10,000.

Pearson and two dozen members of the Matador football team took part in the cleanup operation. For Hughes, a senior cornerback, it was his second tour of custodial duty.

“I enjoy giving my time in helping to clean up because I love this football field and I love playing on it,” Hughes said.

The trash was delivered to the Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Granada Hills. The cleanup should be completed today, after street-sweepers run through the parking lots and other paved areas near the stadium.