Last week on Earth day, Bryan got a good discussion going about recycling. Anyway, that led me to thinking about recycling at school. Schools have to be the most wasteful of groups around. We use styrofoam plates, plastic silverware, and plastic milk bottles, of which none get recycled. The next morning, I started ranting in the school office about the wastefulness of schools and what it teaches kids. A teacher, who is also a good friend of mine, stopped in the office to see what I was talking about because she said I was "fired up." My fire had turned into just coals burning, until today.
The kids at school enjoyed pizza at the end of the day for a fundraiser they did. They also got a soda with their pizza. I didn't notice until everyone was just about cleaned up that ALL the pop cans (approximately 150 or so) were thrown into the garbage can with the paper plates. I was astounded. How hard would it have been to get a garbage bag and have them recycle the cans? What did that teach the kids? It's okay to throw away recyclables. UUUGGGHHH! So frustrating.
5 comments:
I'm still amazed by this story. Sooooo wasteful.
I've been talking with other teachers about ways to recycle milk bottles next year. I don't know if we'll get anything past those above.
I've been trying all year to recycle milk bottles. Nothing has been passed so far. The trouble (or excuses, depending on how you look at it) is that some bottles still have unfinished milk or the bottle will get rotten, who's going to pick them up or take them to the recycling bin, will the district allow us to do this or where's the money coming from if we hire a company to pick them up...blah, blah, blah, blah!
There is a group called the Green Omaha Coalition, and I wrote about a woman involved with them last fall. I recall that she mentioned getting school districts on board with recycling was a major goal. If you like, I'll send you her name and contact information.
The first step in change is someone who wants to make it happen. That's you -- and likely a handful of others.
I'll try to help connect you as much as possible, if you want.
Also, I had no idea you had this blog! I only knew of the family one. Cool!
Sarah - All those things you said you had trouble with, I thought of and wondered if they would come up as possible issues. Still, you'd think someone would be able to make it work!
Veronica - Well, thanks for visiting! I just started this blog a couple weeks ago, so you haven't missed much. :) That would be great to get that lady's contact information. I know of several teachers who would be willing to help me out.
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