At any time of the school day, any passerby could separate the campus before and after lunch by taking a peek at whether or not the campus is littered with trash. The campus quads are left with wrappers and lunch trays on the floor, plants have cans and plastic bottles riddled in between their roots, and the parking lots are littered with waste. Without fail every day bathrooms are closed due to vandalization and trash making administration close the bathrooms, which makes students have to miss more class time to get to an open bathroom. 

   One harmful factor that affects both students and the environment is the misuse of our campus and its facilities, which leads to punishments for everyone. Often, administration closes bathrooms because of students taking paper towels, wetting them, and then clogging the sinks. Not only is this a waste of resources, but it is pointless. There is no plausible reason to do this other than wanting to cause trouble. 

   Students are in charge of the environment and health of the campus around them. Students must take the opportunity to be conscious of their choices. 

   One topic to consider would be that our campus should take the opportunity to recycle more. This can be done by making students more aware of how to recycle and why it is important for the environment. From there, students can help contribute to the school’s recycling process. Students in the extensive support needs class and full inclusion class collect bottles and cans from classrooms’ recycling bins. The school also recycles paper in classrooms that have bins for students to put paper waste in. However, more paper is usually found in trash cans than in recycling bins. Students can achieve higher recycling with more encouragement from teachers. 

   The lack of awareness for students to not pick up after themselves contributes to the problem. For every trash can, there is a recycling bin for bottles and cans within ten feet on campus, which means one is close enough for students to pick up after themselves and throw their trash away, but they choose not to. The other day, I saw Principal Nash picking up after kids who left their lunch by the cafeteria instead of throwing it away. 

   Some students not only do not throw their trash out, they throw it at other students. A couple of weeks ago, my friend and I were standing in line for lunch when she felt something small, sticky, and white hit her arm. She looked down to see someone spit out their gum and it landed on her. 

   It’s easy to think that one plastic bag or gum wrapper will not do much harm, but if 50 kids think that at the same time, the total adds up, and that is how damage is caused to the environment. 

   But the next time you see a piece of trash, be mindful of the affect it can have on the environment and consider picking it up and throwing it away. Keep in mind that it is a community effort to keep this campus clean.