Recycling

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Though our school was recognized as having a great recycling program when compared to other schools in the district, we felt that we could make the largest influence by informing the students to recycle.  Our primary method was using morning announcements, fliers, and members of our Environmental Science class to promote recycling.

During class one day, we had a representative from the Mesa school district come and inform us more on what is recyclable.  So, we spent the class hour sorting through various bags of trash from different locations on campus.  We found that about 70% of the materials in these trash bags were actually recyclable.  Moreover, most of the materials were items found at lunch, such as water bottles, juice boxes, and milk cartons.  This then lead us to promote recycling at our Earth Week Celebration.  We gained approval from the staff to bring the blue recycling barrels out during lunch time.  We then helped to promote recycling, telling people the negative effects of not recycling, and explaining to them what they could actually recycle.  This showed us that people were unsure of what items they could specifically recycle.  Our event even brought in the Arizona Republic to talk about what we were trying to do; raise awareness.

We also signed up to participate in the Cartridges for Kids program, a Waste Management program that recycles electronics, as they are normally non-biodegradable and take up space in landfills.  This event was promoted across the campus, directed towards the students and teachers in the form of a competition.  We challenged the different first hour classes to bring in any used or broken electronics that we could recycle.  These included ink cartridges, cellular phones, CD’s, video games, and other electronic handhelds.  Not only could we raise more awareness through this event, but it helped to generate funds which could then be used by the school in the future.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/2012/04/18/2012018valve-recycling-stresses-skyline.html