The lunch period in a high school moves quickly and involves hundreds of students. That translate into a ton of garbage with hundreds of wrappers, napkins, sporks, milk cartons, etc. The custodians have a difficult job of managing all that garbage. Surprisingly, not all students do their part in making things easier. 

After a lunch period, it is common for students to see leftover food piled up on tables, wrappers on the ground, and gross mixed concoctions of food items that some think are a clever way to deal with their leftover food. From an early age, children are taught to clean up after themselves. Unfortunately, when some kids get to high school, they seem to have forgotten some of the most basic manners that should have been ingrained into them from an early age.

No student wants to go to lunch and sit down at a table with food pieces stuck to it and wrappers someone couldn’t be bothered to pick up. There is only so much a custodian can do with such quick transitions of students between lunch periods. High school students should know better than to leave their garbage for someone else to clean up. 

Sophomore Jaeden Jones said, “I see kids throw all of their trash in a pile and leave it for the custodians.” 

Why wouldn’t students want to make the lives of the custodians at Shadow Ridge easier and take pride in the school? Would a person really leave this type of mess in their own kitchen? Hopefully, not! One small step that can change the environment that people use all year is to clean up after themselves.

Students should encourage other students to do the same and be a role model for people to follow. With everyone doing their part, hopefully the students at Shadow Ridge will no longer have to sit among the mess left by students who think it’s someone else’s responsibility to clean up after them.

Sophomore Bella Mora said , “Custodians constantly have to pick up students trash at their tables because people leave a mess and leave.”

Campus security said “Students at this age should be able to pick up trash easily;  it should be as simple as brushing your teeth.”