School struggles with recycling

Junior Melodie Deisher made a shocking discovery. Last April, she was researching about the waste management and recycling at Glencoe for her final project in AP Environmental Science. Her goal was to teach the school and community how to properly dispose aluminum cans and plastic bottles. However, during that process, she discovered the truth to where the recyclable items actually end up – In the landfill.

Nearly 100 cardboard recycling boxes are located throughout the school, but according to science teacher Richard Stanley, everything in these boxes goes straight to garbage due to contamination.

“Contamination is the worst enemy when it comes to recycling,” Stanley said. “Whenever something unrecyclable such as banana peels are put into these bins, everything that is touched by it becomes unrecyclable.”

Head custodian Javier Monsivais also confirmed this information by saying that the custodians do not have time to differentiate between the disposed items, and if there is obvious contamination within the bin, it is treated like any other garbage can in the school.

Stanley also clarified that the only can and bottle recycling at Glencoe is done by him. Every day after school, he goes from bin to bin, digging out recyclable items from the garbage cans so he can put them in the recycling.

“As of now, it’s a solo operation,” Stanley said. “It would be nice if students took a moment to separate these items by putting them into a recycling bin.”

Despite the struggles the school faces in terms of recycling, students are currently involved in activities to contribute to making a positive impact on the environment.

For the past four years, freshman and sophomore students from Glencoe’s biology classes have been volunteering for SOLVE’s Green Team Program. They volunteer to restore the environmental health of McKay Creek, located behind the school, and they finish the course with a heightened awareness of their impact on the world around them.

In the program’s first year, students removed 3,900 pounds of invasive Armenian blackberry bushes, planted over 1,340 native trees, and removed 300 pounds of litter from the creek.

Several students at Glencoe are also encouraging environmental awareness within the school to make the community more sustainable. Members of the Environmental Impact Club, run by Stanley, are working on installing a composting system in the cafeteria, which will reduce the amount of waste put out by food.

“I saw this as an opportunity to make use of Glencoe’s food waste,” said senior Erin Ruark, a member of the Environmental Impact Club. “Composting doesn’t have to be intimidating or totally repulsive if we view it as a chance to contribute, quite easily, to a global movement towards lessening our impact on the environment. Besides, I think it can be a great learning tool for teachers and students as well.”

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