Reilly's First News Story

Saving Our Planet: One Prep School at a Time

Science Teacher Lisa Bailey and Middle School English Teacher Nancy Horowitz flooded campus with new recycling bins the day before returning to school after winter break. The bright royal blue buckets can be found in nearly every classroom or hallway and in some offices. Not only are these containers now easier to find, they are also simpler to use. With single-stream recycling, all recyclable materials can be tossed into a single bucket. Even bottles and cans can be put in the same bin as paper, although there are still containers for only bottles and cans.
Co-President of the Club Green Team, sophomore Keenan Line, said that the team was not very involved with the planning of the new bins, and that the teachers were the ones who were responsible for this. The Community Sustainability Initiative Group were the people who suggested the idea of putting new bins over school.
The group decided to do this for mostly environmental reasons. They figured that more students would recycle if the bins were more commonly seen around campus and easier to use. The C.S.I. also wanted to make recycling a community effort, and thought that each advisee group should take ownership over their own recycling.
The bins are simpler to use now because they are single-stream, found nearly everywhere, and there are signs near every bin illustrating what is recyclable. This is used as a little reminder, and assists students into recycling correctly. In fact, some bins are not blue, but instead covered in a laminated piece of paper with the rules to recycling. Mrs. Bailey thought that these bins stood out more, and were extremely helpful.
The other reason the bins were put around school was because the recycling system in West Hartford switched to single-stream, and it would be much simpler to have single-stream bins as well.
Keenan said that the Green Team, along with the other Co-President, sophomore Allie Stanton, considered having a school wide competition for recycling, either by advisee group or by grade. They would track the efforts of each group by assigning each party a bin and checking how much recyclable material was placed in the trash, and how much trash was tossed in the recycling bins.
She said that the team also has a few other ideas to increase environmental efforts. The team is planning on soon switching the single-use paper cups to reusable hard-plastic water bottles. “The bins were just a start,” she said, “I wanted to get rid of [plastic] water bottles,” Mrs. Bailey said. Though, she feels that the best thing that the school can do right now to increase environmental endeavors is to continue increasing the awareness of what to recycle.
As to the progress of the new bins so far, Keenan thought that the kids were recycling more because they are further informed about what materials are recyclable compared to what is not. However, we do not know for sure if the bins are working because Mrs. Bailey said that so far no one has been measuring the amount of material recycled. The only measuring system the school currently has is Mrs. Bailey occasionally checking the bins; she finds that there are much more recyclable materials in the bins than before the new bins and posters were out.
The Middle School has received just as much attention to recycling as the Upper School, as Mrs. Horowitz is another member of the C.S.I. and teaches Middle School English.