At 11 a.m. in the cafeteria Wednesday morning senior Whitney Guinn walked into school late to find a mess of styrofoam trays and uneaten food. The trash left by her fellow students, fed up, Guinn took action into her own hands.
“There was so much food everywhere that I was so angry that I put my stuff down,” Guinn said. “I was like, ‘I’m going to pick this stuff up because this is disgusting,’”
Custodian Dallas Thomas, who has been a part of the RBHS staff for 10 years, said the messiest places to clean are in front of the main doors, the east atrium and the area surrounding the atrium.
“I wish the students saw [cleaning up their trash] as respecting their school and having school pride,and that’s why they want to clean up the building, not because they have to,” Thomas said.
With 1,938 students in attendance and only three custodians on shift during the day to clean up, she said keeping the school clean is a challenging task. With such an uneven custodian to student ratio, keeping the school clean often proves to be a challenging task.
“We have so many outside people that come in and use our building and view our building,” Thomas said. “We want to make it look the best that we can, and I just wish more kids could see it that way.”
Caring about how the school looks and throwing away a lunch tray takes three seconds at minimum. There are trash cans all around the school for the students’ convenience, and it’s time to take them as an advantage. “There are trashcans everywhere you look around the school within 10 feet at all times usually. The students don’t have a reason not to clean up their messes.”
Senior Ian Cowan agrees that there’s a littering issue around the school, as a barista, he knows what it’s like to clean up after people in a public space and feels strongly about the schools littering issue.
“If you walk in the hallways after lunch you’ll just find little random bits of food that people just don’t pick up,” Cowan said. “It’s annoying, and I wish it would stop.”
Do you think RBHS has a littering issue?