After today, all of the trash cans in the district will be standardized. No longer will the trash cans be of varying shapes and sizes. All will now have to be the same type of plastic cans instead of the metal trash cans we currently have.

Assistant principal Brian Gaub, who is in charge of building operations,  said this is mainly to get rid of the metal.

“It’s district-wide to get rid of the metal,” Gaub said. “The metal will leave rust rings on carpet and tile.”

Furthermore, there will now only be one trash can in each room, all of which will be the same size. Gaub said this should speed up the janitors’ rounds, as they will not need to look for smaller trash cans under desks. In addition, Gaub said that the district would likely provide some larger trash cans for classes that generate a lot of trash, like the science rooms.

“I’ve been told that there are some larger trash cans for certain rooms like science and art,” Gaub said. “There will be some things that they will have to adjust, but it will be worked out.”

However, some teachers are skeptical of the change. Honors Anatomy and Physiology teacher Melissa Wessel said there may be some trouble keeping her classes’ trash from overflowing.

“Because the classes I teach include labs, we generate a great deal of trash on lab days and fill two trash cans,” said Wessel, who is the science department chair. “My only concern is having a large enough solitary trashcan to handle all our waste.”

Some Art Honor Association students are also disappointed to learn of the change. AHA members have painted some of the metal trash cans, and these painted trash cans will be among the ones that will be replaced.

Senior Najeebah Hussain, a member of Art Club, said those in Art Honor Association put a lot of effort into painting the trash cans.

“Some are very large and intricately designed and others are more simple,” Hussain said. “It’s just sad because the kids worked hard on them and some of them are really beautiful. Hopefully they can be used somewhere, if not Rock Bridge.”

By Derek Wang
What do you think of changing wastebaskets?