It’s not easy to miss. The bright blue bins are tucked into the corner of almost every room. The middle of each bin has the same three white arrow pattern: it’s recycling. Recycling at Millard South, however, has less impact than many might expect.
“Throughout the years we’ve heard… ‘Well they just throw it in the trash anyway,’ but this year, that was true unfortunately,” Environmental Club sponsor Tessa Adams said.
Recycling likely stopped due to a breakdown in communication with contracted custodial staff.
“I don’t know what happened, I don’t know where the disconnect was, I know we had hired out for room cleaning and so they maybe didn’t know about the [recycling] bin that was co-mingled [meaning bottles, paper, etc., could all go into the bin],” Adams said.
The large number of staff involved and the intricacies of managing the program meant that recycling was not prioritized. In addition, people placing non-recyclable items into bins caused an issue. While the contents of the bins in classrooms are no longer being recycled, cardboard from the cafeteria has continued to be recycled.
“The kitchen staff [is] doing a really good job of making sure that all their boxes [are] going into the recycling bin,” Principal Heidi Weaver said. “Somewhere along the way [recycling the contents of the blue bins] kind of went to the wayside.” Weaver said she is not sure exactly when recycling stopped.
Freshman Kassie Bazis said that recycling is important at Millard South because it betters the environment.
“Not to mention, our school uses a lot of paper and recyclable materials, making the impact even more important,” Bazis said.
We have had recycling programs in the past, with the most recent one being led primarily by the Environmental Club. The club bought and maintained a few recycling bins for the building that were placed throughout the school. Sponsors would then take the waste to a recycling company.
“That got to be a little too much, you can imagine, for us alone to do that. And then, the district brought in a commingled recycle bin,” Adams said. After the school brought in a large recycling bin, small recycling bins were placed in each classroom and collected by custodians.
The Environmental Club students educated teachers and students about recycling. They made signs indicating what could and couldn’t go into the recycling bins.
Picking up the recycling bins became a difficult task as people often placed non-recyclables into the bins. Some felt like they needed to sort through the containers.
“I don’t think that’s right that anybody has to dig through trash if somebody’s not going to fully recycle,” Weaver said.
Upon the realization that recycling was not happening, several department heads and staff brought the issue to attention at a department meeting where a new recycling program was proposed.
“It came to my attention, through some transitions with some different leaders in the custodial area, that [recycling] was not happening and then immediately I started a plan of action to re-install the… [program] for the whole building, for next year,” Weaver said.
The program proposed involves ACP (Alternate Curriculum Program) students picking up recycling bins from classrooms upon a request by each room. A survey will be sent out to teachers where they can indicate if they would be willing to educate their students about what’s recyclable and monitor their recycling bin. They can also request a bin. Weaver said that if a recycling bin gets filled with trash the entire contents will be thrown away.
“We’re not having anybody dig through trash,” Weaver said. This new program is planned to be fine tuned and implemented next year. Other students could potentially get involved with the new program as well.
“We are open to any ideas. There is no set plan, if [we want it to be] a team effort I’m all in,” Weaver said. Recycling is a collective effort and we all need to work together to create a solution, Weaver said.
“I think [that] recycling is important.. I want our building to have an opportunity [to recycle],” Weaver said.
According to Millard Facilities director Shelly Kaup, each high school has an 8-yard dumpster for recycling. The dumpster at Millard South costs $218 per month, is picked up twice a week and is paid for by the district. Kaup said that creating a recycling program is not too difficult, but there are some challenges to sustaining one such as contamination of recycled items.
“Contamination will occur with: foam cups, foam containers, food, liquids, fabric and any type of plastic bags (even if it is a plastic bag of recyclables). We can be charged by Waste Management for contaminated recycling in our recycle dumpsters,” Kaup said. You can recycle plastic bottles, cups (excluding foam and compostable cups), paper, newspapers, magazines, cardboard and food and beverage cans, Kaup said.
According to Adams recycling is important, especially for a big school due to the large amount of waste created. She also said that continued education for staff and students as to what can and can’t be recycled is important.
“We have [a recycling bin], not everybody has [one]. So if we could use it, that would just impact our world so much,” Adams said. “We are teaching the future, so we’d like that future to be great for you,” she said.
