STOCKTON– As we make our way toward the end of the school year, March has finally arrived.  In the past 4 years of my high school career, I have come to realize many things about not only the issues of the world, but the problems that lie within our school.  For the last 2 years, I have been a member of Our Planet Club, the environmental club at school, and being a part of such a community has encouraged me to bring attention to issues that may have gone unnoticed or with lack acknowledgement.  A persistent problem that we have been trying to tackle for a long time is recycling.

At school, our recycling bins don’t get recycled.

For context, Our Planet Club conducts the recycling program, AKA recycling day, here on campus where we collect cans, bottles, cardboard, and paper from the recycling bins in each classroom.  This program has been active since 2019 and after the pandemic, we have made attempts to keep this program active on a consistent basis.  However, recycling days have always been a hit-or-miss for us post-pandemic, as there is usually a lack of materials to recycle or a lack of recycling bins to collect.  And finally, I was able to dissect what causes these issues for us.  

First of all, many people don’t know that recycling actually gets thrown away with trash.  When janitors go from classroom to classroom to clean, the recycling bins and trash cans are dumped into one larger trash can.  Unfortunately, we have witnessed these tragic events at some of our recycling days, so we try to get to the classrooms before they do.  At times, it can be an obstacle.  Janitors clean classrooms throughout the day, every day, which sometimes leads to there being no recyclables left to collect.  But, can we really blame janitors for doing their jobs though?  

Secondly, there is improper recycling that occurs.  There is a limit to what our club recycles and while many things can be recycled, they must be sorted and organized depending on what it is.  And to be honest, we’ve seen some silly things that end up in the recycling bins, such as candy wrappers and mechanical pencils.  In previous years, our former club members have posted flyers in classrooms on what to recycle.  But, it seems like these flyers have disappeared after the pandemic.

Lastly, there is a lack of awareness about recycling day.  The pandemic definitely led to a loss of knowledge about daily activities that were once prevalent on campus.  I mean, my class did start high school online.  Also, we have many new staff members on campus who probably have zero clue what recycling day is.  Therefore, our club has tried to spread awareness about our program by promoting it on social media, notifying the student and staff bulletin, and participating in the daily video announcements.  I acknowledge that recycling day does not occur on a consistent basis, which could contribute to the lack of knowledge about this program too.  As a solution, after the start of the spring semester, we have attempted to host recycling days more frequently.  But, we have had times in which we had to cancel due to the lack of participation from classrooms.  To take it a step further, I asked the principal, Ms. Bender, face-to-face, if we could speak at the next staff meeting about our program.  With a smile on her face, she told me “No.”  I was in disbelief, and thought that maybe she was just joking with me.  But, she actually wasn’t.  She informed me that students were not allowed to speak at staff meetings, and told me to email her a slideshow presentation of our program to be presented at a staff meeting instead.  Although this was better than nothing, I was skeptical of this.  It can be difficult to hear back from the principal through email, so I could not trust that this message would be conveyed in the manner that we would like it to be delivered.  When it comes to students’ opinions, it is better to hear from the students themselves rather than from another source.  However, we will try to do this and hope for the best.  But after this, we will be all out of ideas. 

In the years to come, we wish to tackle this recycling issue on campus.  Although recycling may seem like a tiny solution to a huge problem, our recycling program does provide a sense of community involvement at school.  In addition to providing volunteer hours for students, recycling days offer opportunities for students to create memories while in high school.  As we go from classroom to classroom, we get to meet other students, new staff members, and explore classes that we may not have known existed.  I’ve been participating in recycling days for two years now, and I can proudly say that our members genuinely enjoy recycling.  Recycling days help contribute to our lost campus culture, and us students hope that it continues to thrive.