Issue With Allentown's Recycling Performance Grant

The city of Allentown released the following..."The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has recently awarded the City of Allentown roughly $265,000 in a Recycling Program Performance Grant. The grant, whose letter cites the city’s “exemplary efforts,” is..." blah, blah, blah.

Yeah BUT..
I'm tired of calling this into the city when nothing's done about enforcment. The Muhlenberg college students living in one house out here in our area haven't recycled one iota of anything in over 20 years.. NADDA.. NOTHING!

Right now there are over two dozen trash bags piled up next to one porch. Once every summer the landlord loads up the trash on to the back of a pickup only to have it accumulate once again with the next batch of students. It isn't like the city of Allentown doesn't know about this rental since it is registered with the city.

We've brought home two large green containers for them. Lord knows where they ended up. Maybe as ice buckets for their beer kegs?

Let me explain how things work out here in the fabulous West End. Not once (in over the last 20+) has any citation ever been issued by the Allentown Police for a noise complaint to this house I'm referring to (no matter how many times we've called it in) that resulted in an eviction. Nor have students been cited for failure to recycle, the trash bags that have built up in their back porch area or underage drinking after breaking up 30 or more students partying at any given time in this particular rental. Not one student rental has been kicked out under the city's three strikes ordinance.

The only thing I can conclude is the mayor has issued a 'hands off policy when it comes to the college students in off campus rental units'. How else to explain it?

Perhaps the mayor ought to take some of this quarter of million dollar+ grant and use it to impress upon students why they are required to observe the ordinances like the rest of us while they live in Allentown for four years. Call it a part of their education regarding civic responsibility if you will.

Because of the city's failure to enforce their illegal parking, trash/recycling noise and underage partying ways, these students will continue to be encouraged to live off campus to avoid coming under the constraints that they otherwise would have had under Muhlenberg College's supervision. Therefore I do not fault Muhlenberg College nor it's other students but rather the city of Allentown for choosing to look the other way.