Returning back to school for in-person learning, students regained the ability to eat together during lunch and learn in actual classrooms. However, with a month left in the school year, there has been a lack of care with the considerable amount of litter plaguing our campus.
During lunch, custodians Michael Perretti and Carlos Torres patrol the entire campus with trash cans, asking students to throw away their food wrappers and lunch trays. Despite their noteworthy duties, in addition to the six other custodians, students still leave their trash all along the corridors, marring our halls.
It is disrespectful for the student body to make the custodians clean up from the floor what could have easily been discarded into waste bins. There are trash cans located on every corner of the campus within 30 feet of each other, making it very simple for students to easily throw away their trash from any spot. It is unreasonable for the custodians to continuously keep cleaning up piles of trash and patrolling the halls while students fail to consider their efforts and the hygiene of our campus.
Although this semester has yielded an unbearable amount of litter, students have also noticed an increase in litter at the beginning of the school year.
“I was passing out flyers in the heat for four hours during registration week and at the end while walking around, I saw my flyer crumpled up into a ball,” stated junior Trinh Huynh. “It absolutely shattered my heart.”
Dropping a piece of paper or a single mask can seem insignificant when compared to the other 1,600 people on campus. However, when everybody else believes that their own efforts are inconsequential, the trash accumulates, and the problem is no longer miniscule.
Carelessness can lead to soil and water pollution. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, pieces of trash can easily be brushed into waterways through drains. Additionally, when plastics are not properly disposed of, they can break down into microplastics which can be toxic when ingested and are nearly impossible to clean from the environment.
The overabundance of litter can be solved by the cooperation of students. Students should evaluate their own actions and take care to clean up after themselves. It is quick and simple for students to pick up a stray worksheet or tell others if they have mistakenly left behind wrappers or napkins instead of ignoring the action entirely.
We as a community should hold each other accountable. If a friend accidentally drops their worksheet or a mask falls out of their pocket, these actions should not be ignored. Students can also make the effort to pick up a stray piece of paper, as it lessens the strain put on our custodians.
It is easy to forget to pick up food wrappers at the end of lunch, however the trash accumulates and it is the student body’s responsibility to pick up their own garbage. This is our campus, where we spend our time eight hours a day. It is only right that we maintain its cleanliness for us and future students to enjoy in the many years to come.