photo or infographic by Heather Jackson

Trash left behind by students in the morning and during lunch.

Cartons of milk and juice litter the halls after the breakfast run. Empty chip bags and dirty plates fill the tables after lunch. Smashed donuts and empty water bottles on the stairs after 5th period. Each and every day students leave mounds of trash in the cafeteria and throughout the halls. Students nearing adulthood shouldn’t be leaving garbage everywhere for someone else to pick up later. 

High school is the next step into adulthood. Mama won’t always be there to pick up the trail of garbage all day, everyday. There will come a day when students leave home and will need to pick up after themselves unless they feel like living in filth. Some may think cleaning up isn’t necessary because that is the custodians’ job. The custodial staff is hard at work making sure our school is clean and presentable while we are in class and late into the night. We are let out at the dismissal bell, and when the tardy bell rings, they have to do their hard work all over again. By leaving garbage everywhere,  more weight is added to an already heavy load.

Multiple times a week schools come from around the area to compete against the Wildkats. Have some school pride. It is embarrassing for other schools to see to see hallways, bathrooms and bleachers riddled with litter. If students don’t want neighboring schools to believe the school to be trash, maybe they shouldn’t leave soda cans, Chick-Fil-A bags and half-drunk coffee cups for them to see every ten feet.

Every student has gone to a fast food restaurant at one time or another. When people go to fast food restaurants, they typically pick up their trash and throw it away when they are done because the workers are supposed to keep the restaurant clean, not pick up after people. If the customers leave their garbage everywhere, then it takes up the time of the employees forcing the flow of the restaurant to come to the pace of the world’s slowest snail. If the customers would have thrown away their trash, the employees would be able to focus on the more time demanding and important jobs at hand. It seems that the school is now full of disrespectful customers who make the restaurant look like trash and add weight to the shoulders of the hard-working employees.

The solution to this problem is easy. Everyone needs to clean up. If someone is making a mess, there are two choices: clean up after them or tell them to clean up their mess. Wildkats, we treat our school like the city dump. We can do better. We need to do a lot better.