(COVINGTON, La.) — “The Gravel Pit,” a nickname given by students to a parking lot near LaSalle Hall, has recently turned from a place for students to park their cars to a place for people to throw and dispose of their trash.

“It’s very disappointing to me,” Principal Trevor Watkins said. “First of all I don’t understand how anyone who has something in their hand to dispose of thinks it is okay to just throw it on the ground.”

Recently, a few kids serving a morning detention were instructed to clean up the gravel pit.

“I found a lot of water bottles, and I found jar of cheeseballs that was empty,” junior Nick Picone said, who was surprised by some of the garbage items left behind.

“That parking lot is also used during non-school hours by campus visitors, and it’s adjacent to a public street,” President Bro. Ray Bulliard said. “There’s no way of knowing whether the students themselves are leaving the refuse, whether it’s visitors to our campus, or whether it’s passersby throwing things out of the window — all of which are possible. Whatever the reason, it’s still disconcerting.”

For a number of years, the administration has been battling the tendency of students to leave refuse under the Wolfdome during lunch. Recognizing that the trash problem has spread, faculty members are trying to find a way to prevent the Gravel Pit from becoming a garbage pit.

“It’s pretty straight forward for a student to throw trash away in a trash can,” Watkins said. “Why is that so hard for a student to do?”

Watkins doesn’t yet have a full plan on finding a way to stop the littering around the Gravel Pit, but most think it should just be common sense to throw away a piece of trash instead of throwing it on the ground in the Gravel Pit and surrounding wooded area, which negatively affects the beauty of the unique campus at St. Paul’s.

“Our campus has beautiful trees, and we have good wildlife,” senior Ethan Hopel said. “Littering is one step at a time killing not only our campus, but the earth. It may not seem like a big deal, however that garbage can end up in rivers, lakes, oceans, wherever. The more we litter, the more we are killing wildlife, because fish and other animals could eat that.”