The city of San José has hosted a multitude of events throughout the spring, and although those events bring positive publicity to the city, consequently, trash gets left behind.
I feel every concert and sporting event reveals how careless people can be by leaving trash everywhere, but the designated bins.
There have been countless times where I’ve gone to sporting events and would witness the aftermath of a pregame booze session and wonder who’s going to be cleaning that up.
Whether I’m going to a Giants game or catching the Sharks at SAP Center, when the game is over, I have to look down to make sure to not step on any food and drinks.
It’s completely opposite in the Japanese Baseball League. Fans who are in attendance clean up as they leave because it’s seen as a courtesy.
San José is a beautiful city that offers a lot for locals to enjoy.
You don’t have to travel far to have fun here, but that fun gets overlooked by loads of litter cluttering the street.
With the Super Bowl back in February, San José hosted a two-day block party at City Hall with Bay Area native Kehlani and DJ Dom Dolla as headliners.
This took place two days before the Super Bowl Media Day, being held down the street from the San José McEnery Convention Center.
After the concert concluded, there was a post showing the layer of trash scattered in front of City Hall on Instagram posted by user @pinayangela.
After watching that video, it showed that people sometimes have no respect when it comes to cleaning up after themselves.
Everywhere I go there is trash either piled up in random places or blowing through the wind.
Whether there’s an event or not, trash seems to be a normal sight in San José.
The weird thing about this is the city has BeautifySJ where you can get involved, report situations like illegal dumping and graffiti around San José.
Although the city offers this resource, I feel like the city still does not get taken care of in a timely manner.
I think with future events coming to San José, the trash will equal the amount of people at these events.
The next few events coming to San José are likely to bring a large influx of waste such as the Music Mania Festival, which changed from a three-day event to a one-day free event.
This event was set to have DJ Diesel better known as Shaquille O’Neal the NBA hall of famer, but have not confirmed if Bebe Rexha and Dustin Lynch will be in attendance.
I personally think events like this are great for San José as the city does not see significant headliners come around often.
A significant change like this will bring way more people, which can have a larger attendance than Kehlani.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association is set to play its March Madness games on March 26 and March 28 in San José to host both the sweet sixteen and the elite eight at the SAP Center.
With other schools and fans traveling to San José in support of their alma mater, you see trash get picked up so the city looks good.
Because God forbid people from out of town see trash on the ground.
Ever since the sanitation strike in July 2025, I feel like San José has not recovered.
The sanitation strike took place from July 8, 2025 and ended 10 days later on July 18, 2025 spreading across 25 Bay Area cities including San José with the cause being workers wanting better working conditions from higher wages to safer working conditions, according to the July 2025 KTVU article.
I can already see the overflown dumpsters and trash bags being stacked like a game of Tetris.
When this happened, establishments did not hold on to its trash, instead they had to leave it outside where raccoons and rats are tearing through each bag like a kid on Christmas day.
San José State also upgraded its trash cans around campus over the course of winter break, according to a Dec. 4, 2025 article from the Spartan Daily.
The Bigbelly trash cans are solar powered units that are capable of withholding more garbage than an ordinary waste bin and have smart features, according to its website.
These trash cans have helped around campus quite a bit. If they are maintained properly the campus will look clean. I will occasionally see the bins left open and will see garbage placed on top of it. Is it really that hard to step on a pedal?
Mayor Matt Mahan mentioned in his March Budget Message that 24.4 million pounds of trash were removed from the city in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, according to his memorandum.
I love San José and want to see the place I call home succeed, but that will not happen if locals and tourists treat the city as their own personal garbage disposal.
Before the Super Bowl Mayor Matt Mahan launched a series of service projects around San José to make the city look presentable by picking up trash and painting designs on junction boxes, according to Mahan’s Facebook page.
Although this was a nice thing to do, where is the consistency of keeping those areas clean after large scale events. When I see the city get cleaned for events that attract thousands of people it reminds me of being told to clean my room because guests were coming over.
