By Jade Burch and Rachel Felix

Littering around the school is noticed by the students and staff, although we do not talk about it enough or really at all. Whether it be an apple core or a cardboard tray, we need to clean up after ourselves. 

Byron Pastrana, 11, said that littering affects him because it makes the school look unprofessional. 

He suggests “enforce the littering law more. The fine for littering is something like $300 dollars. I’m 100% certain that if we enforced it, no one would litter.” 

The fine for littering actually starts at $550, as well as 24 hours of community service for minors. 

Lots of trash on campus ends up dispersing all over, ending up in far places that it doesn’t belong.

“A lot of our litter ends up spreading. Some of it even ends up in the ocean so the turtles eat straws,” said Nathaniel Baker, 9.

Up to 10% of our trash ends up in our oceans according to plastic-pollution.org. Custodians spend hours on campus during and after school just cleaning up for that day. 

“We actually have sections, I clean up a certain area and the other custodians do the rest,” said Larry Nolen, SBHS custodian. “I use hours out of my day trying to clean up after students. We are very under-staffed, but some students help out and it makes my day a little better.” 

All this custodian asks is for us to use one of the many trash cans on campus. 

The average school produces 48 pounds of litter per student each school year according to waste360.com. Teachers notice when students carelessly throw trash on the ground. 

“We should have kids serving detention time cleaning up around campus. The custodians work very hard and don’t need to clean as much as they do,” said Crystal Butts, staff/mentor at YAP.

Picking up after yourself doesn’t seem like such a hard task when you think about it, but most students don’t even really think about it at the moment.

“Honestly, when I see other people do it, it pisses me off but I forget about it and just leave my trash on the table because I know it would be cleaned up by one of the janitors sooner or later,” said Neveah Morales, 9.

The trash bin by the D building gets raided by the homeless people and they obviously don’t care much to clean up after themselves, therefore, there is trash all over the asphalt. This not only is a horrible sight to see, but the smell isn’t quite pleasurable either.

“Well, littering obviously makes our campus seem more messy and dirtier. I think that what Cardinal City can do is probably be more aware of it – as in staff talking about it and maybe being more strict towards the topic, maybe having to do community service hours cleaning the campus if caught littering on campus,” said Nallely Alvarado, 11.

Upon coming to the school, freshmen can see just by looking around the school that littering is a huge problem.

“I think that people shouldn’t litter. You wouldn’t like it if someone came to your house and littered, so why would you come to school and litter here? I honestly don’t want to attend a school that has trash everywhere because kids like to litter and be nasty, and personally I think kids should be more mature and respectful enough to pick up their trash, but clearly, that is way too much to ask these kids.” said Daisy Sandoval, 9.

“I think that kids at our school litter because they are lazy and unmotivated to do anything but sit there, and I think the school’s location plays a part in why our school is so dirty. The reason our school may be so dirty is that it is located in San Bernardino, which happens to be known as a trashy and ghetto cheater. In my eyes, there isn’t really much we can do other than pick up the trash that makes others label our school as trashy.” said Gabriel Isaac Blacksher, 9.

We have many trash cans around the school campus, most only 20 feet apart from each other. All of the trash on the asphalt and pavement not only makes our school look bad, but it spreads into unknown places. Plastic bottles alone take over 100 years to decompose. So a message that is from not only the custodians, but the staff and some of your fellow peers, please pick up your waste.