Thanks, Rose Bowl Parade, For The Trash!

As most of you know yesterday was a big day here in Pasadena because of the annual Rose Bowl Parade. People started camping out on Colorado Blvd. 12pm the day before the parade. And while I won’t fault anyone for wanting to see an army of Storm Troopers and some incredible floats there is another reason to be bothered by the impact the parade has on the city. The amount of trash sprawled throughout the city streets not only looked like the aftermath of a riot but showed a lack of decency from our fellow American neighbors.

My buddy Seth and I went out for a ride yesterday to survey the damage done to Colorado BLVD, and I must say it was rather shocking. What makes it okay to treat public space like a trash dump? Every inch of Colorado from Sierra Madre down to Arroyo Parkway is covered with heaps of trash. We saw piles of burned charcoal, aluminum cans of silly string, thousands of starbucks mugs, bags of trash, and plastic cups to name some of the junk. It’s hard to believe that adults really treat a city like that, especially since most of them were just visiting pasadena. Strangely enough, all of Old Town (Pasadena’s shopping district on Colorado BLVD) was completely clean. Some have said that each person who camps out creates one weeks’ worth of trash in just one night, I am not sure if that’s true but it sure looked like it.
See more photos here.