On my school’s campus, a littering problem among the students has developed. The principal has reacted by canceling after-school activities for all students. I think that the punishment for this issue is unreasonable. I feel as though the students who have nothing to do with the problem should not be forced to abide to the consequences. Those who have taken part in littering on school grounds should be the ones punished, not every single student.

I think that although students littering is the main issue, students not knowing that what they are doing is harming the planet is also a problem. The school should take those students and try and communicate to them the larger problems that we might have with the environment that could be caused by the students littering on campus. If the students who are littering are educated on what could happen if they continued to throw garbage away improperly, then they might stop, for fear of the environmental problem getting any worse. If they really knew the effects that they were causing, it would be easier to get those specific students to stop littering.

The students that are littering should also be warned about how their littering is affecting the campus, and them individually. Before actually implementing the consequences, there should be a warning to students about littering. If it doesn’t stop, then the school should proceed to take action against the students who are causing the issue. Also, the students should see that what they are doing is making their own campus dirty and unappealing. If they don’t want to be in that environment, then they will not contribute to it.

I do not think that taking action and punishing every student would help the littering situation. I believe that it would make the situation worse. Before stating consequences, students need to be informed of the problems they are causing. If littering continues, then students who are involved could be individually punished. I don’t think it is fair of the school to punish every single student because if the student had no part in the problem, they are being punished for no reason. There are better solutions to deal with the problem, rather than punishing every student, therefore making the whole student body upset, and not resolving the littering problem directly. There are many ways to deal with the problem, but punishing every student is not one of them.