“On a scale of one to 10, I’d say it’s a nine.”
This is what Custodian Mark Leavy said regarding Portola High students’ littering problem, with 10 being the most severe. Trash is everywhere: bathrooms, planters, stairs and more, according to Leavy.
As the student population increases, so does the trash problem at Portola High— although less so than other schools, according to assistant principal James Coney. To help incentivize people to pick up trash, Portola High students who are proactive in holding others accountable when trash is not thrown away should be rewarded by staff who oversee break and lunch with the newly introduced PBIS Act Positively tickets. This will ultimately foster a cleaner environment and decrease unnecessary stress for teachers and custodians.
Littering is an everyday occurrence that could be easily rectified if students were more proactive about picking up their trash, according to Coney.
“The way I look at this, if we have 2500 students plus over 100 staff, if everyone just picked up one piece of trash every day, there’ll be no trash on this campus,” Coney said. “Some people have the belief that our custodians are here to clean up after them. But again, this is not a fancy restaurant where someone’s going to come and pick up everything.”
Litter additionally causes problems for custodians, whose responsibilities consist of cleaning rooms, helping with maintenance and keeping the campus secure instead of picking up students’ trash, according to Leavy.
“It makes the job much harder because the school gets very dirty,” Leavy said. “A lot of kids don’t pick up after themselves and leave trash, which causes a lot of problems with rodents and overall cleanliness. It’d be much more helpful if they use the trash cans provided around the campus.”
Despite the abundance of trash cans that are available around campus, custodians must spend additional time picking up trash that students fail to throw away. This takes away from the time needed for them to fully devote themselves to their intended responsibilities.
Students do not take responsibility for their trash for several underlying reasons, according to freshman Claire Liu.
“There are some moments where you just feel like you’re just too lazy, or somebody else is going to pick up after you,” Liu said. “But in reality, that’s not the case. And you’re just making the problem worse for everyone.”
Students at Portola High often underestimate the true issue of littering on campus because of the hard work of our custodial staff. Holding people who litter accountable for their actions and educating fellow peers will significantly contribute to reducing the amount of waste present. By encouraging and rewarding students with the new Act Positively Tickets, students and staff alike will benefit from the decreased amount of litter on campus.
