Every day at lunch more careless students leave chip bags, milk cartons, and sandwich wrappers behind, littering the campus. As more efforts are being made in order to try to control the amount of trash left around the school, will students ever take responsibility and clean up their litter?

“Students need to be responsible,” said junior Katie-Starr Harrell. They need to “respect the campus.”

Many have witnessed it: a student getting up and leaving all of their trash from lunch on the cafeteria table, walking past several trash cans on the way toward the doors as an SHS staff member calls out through a megaphone reminding everyone to please pick up their trash. This scenario happens every day, as many students leave their litter behind.

The litter doesn’t just disappear or clean up itself; custodians have to walk through, sweeping up and collecting all of the trash themselves. In the outside lunch area, a couple of staff and custodians may be seen picking up the litter.

“They’re two people,” said Assistant Principal Mr. Michael Hennessy. “It’s not fair to them.”

The school has been making many efforts to enforce that students must throw away their trash, in order to reduce the amount of litter left after lunch every day. Before the bell rings for the end of lunch, staff will remind the students to pick up their trash, and if students are caught by staff leaving their trash behind, they will be told to take it. Staff members in the cafeteria also threaten to put up the tables if students don’t pick up their trash.

“Now, during lunch they’re like: if you don’t clean your table, your table’s going up the next day,” said sophomore Aneesha Olibrice.

There have also been many trash cans set out around campus, in another way to influence students to throw away their trash, instead of on a table or the ground. Yet with all of the attempts by staff to get students to pick up after themselves,  so many still litter, and trash remains a problem around the campus.

Some students believe that punishment is the way to go.

“Unless an action is taken they’re not going to understand,” said sophomore Nabilah Miah. “The janitors aren’t your slaves and your maids.”

Litter has been a problem for years at SHS, and for all of Seminole county. There are environmentalist groups working to influence people to get involved and work towards a cleaner environment.

The main solution that the environmental groups, the SHS staff, and others aim for is to raise awareness of the problem and to get people to care.

Hennessy said that becoming a cleaner campus involves “more students taking pride in the school” and “encouraging their peers” to clean up their trash also.

The amount of trash left each day will be reduced “if 3,000 people make a conscious effort,” said Mr. Hennessy.

In the end, despite actions made by SHS staff and custodians, it is up to the students to take the responsibility for the problem and clean up after themselves, along with encouraging others to do so. In result of more students picking up their own litter, less trash will be left on campus, leaving Seminole High School with a cleaner and healthier learning environment.