How would you feel if you had to pick trash every night rather than spend quality time at home? What would it be like to relax outdoors on a Sunday surrounded by nauseating food remains? How would it feel to see your home environment trashed? This is the disgusting reality of cleaning staff and ResLife students at The Village High School, an issue that stems from a lack of respect and morality from some students. 

 After quarantine, some students seem to have forgotten how to clean up after themselves. It’s understandable that everyone’s cleaning habits may be lacking after not being in school for a year due to Covid-19, but to what extent can it be allowed for students to leave a mess wherever they go? ResLife students have found themselves swimming in an ocean of litter every evening after day students completely trash campus and leave with no repercussions. Many teachers around campus have tried different ways to deal with this problem such as taking students’ IDs during lunch and only returning them if their tables are clean, but overall this initiative has failed to decrease litter. With over 7 trash cans all over the main patio of the high school, it is extremely worrying and embarrassing to see, and smell, students’ inability to clean up after themselves. This inability forces Village cleaning staff around campus to stay an unnecessary amount of time cleaning after undisciplined students. It’s unbelievable to think we are refusing people from seeing their families and loved ones earlier than they could, due to the fact that they cannot leave school until they fix the preposterous messes. 

So how can this issue be fixed? Roles can always be reversed so that students are the ones who must stay overtime every day to clean after themselves instead of the cleaning staff. Worrying consequences like climate change and ocean pollution are the results of the inaptitude from people who do not care about the environment. Drastic measures can always be implied, the worse a problem may get, the more drastic the consequence will be. So, in respect of Reslife students and Village staff, as students, let’s be considerate as a community and become more responsible for our consumption and waste.