I live in the McGill ghetto, but I’m not a McGill University student. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoy the youthful energy and continuous action of my unique downtown neighbourhood. I don’t even mind when, at this time of year, my home is surrounded by students revelling (often loudly) in their successes, and partying into the wee hours to commemorate the end of another school year.

It was not so long ago that I was a celebrating student myself. What I do mind, however, is the incredible mess left in the McGill ghetto in late April and early May as students clear out of their school-year homes and leave Montreal for the summer, or forever.

Engulfing the sidewalks and back lanes of my otherwise lovely dog-walking route are piles and piles of both garbage and totally reusable items. Among the rotting food, broken glass and charred notepaper are perfectly intact bookshelves, desk lamps, clothes and printers tossed like common trash and destined to become as much.

Garbage has always been a bit of a year-round problem in our neighbourhood. Between the raccoons and the tin-can collectors, if a bag of trash is left out in a lane or on the curb, you can bet it will be torn open and scattered. I still have greasy paw-print stains on my deck from a ravaged bag of discarded pizza. The city of Montreal has recently helped matters by placing large black receptacles in back lanes. That said, in late April and early May, these bins are beyond overflowing — and virtually useless on most days.

Like the city of Montreal with these black bins, the city of Winnipeg has introduced standard new lidded bins for every residence. The difference in Winnipeg, though, is that a single 240- or 360-litre bin is your only garbage entitlement. You are not allowed to also put out beside these bins any sort of garbage bag; it just won’t be picked up. In Montreal, by comparison, anything that gets thrown out gets picked up. That encourages curbside messes.

My neighbour, Heather Johnson, who has lived in the McGill ghetto both as a student and now as a real estate professional and landlord, says she feels badly for the men and women charged with the task of cleaning up after departing students who, after all, are supposed to be quite savvy about environmental issues like recycling. She noted the other day, “How can you be smart enough to graduate from a high-quality school like McGill University, but not enough to know that this isn’t right?”

My take on it: They do know, but many just don’t care.

In fact, I was pleased to learn that McGill operates a student-run program to deal with this very problem. Departing students with reusable housewares, furniture and clothing are invited to donate them to the Campus Swaps program, which will actually come and pick the items up and then sell them at low cost to incoming students.

So why, then, is the corner of my street still piled with reusable stuff? André Costopoulos, dean of students at McGill University, told me the swap program is still very new, although he recognizes that the university does have a role to play in encouraging students to come up with their own solutions to this annual problem.