Recycling at AHS: The how-to guide

You’ve heard it a million times: Recycle! But as simple and annoying as it may sound, recycling is actually an incredibly important part of keeping our school—and the world—safe and clean. However, recycling isn’t going to happen by itself; we all need to make the tiny effort to recycle correctly.

How to recycle:

Chances are you recycle differently at home than you recycle at school. There are blue and yellow bins sprinkled around the school, in each classroom, in the halls, and other areas, that are labeled “paper” and “plastic.” However, the blue and yellow bins are the same! You can throw all recyclables into both; they will all be thrown into the same bigger recycling bins. (The labels don’t mean anything; they are there because the bins used to be separated but no longer are.)

But what can you recycle?

DO recycle:

Recycle paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines and any clean soda cans and plastic bottles: more information on what to recycle can be found on posters around the school.

Don’t put any food in the bins!

A small amount of food contaminates the whole bin, sending all of the recyclables with food on them to the garbage. Plus, it’s really gross, especially for the special ed
class that kindly picks up all the bins for the school. Putting non-recyclable garbage, like plastic bags or used napkins, in the bins also makes a big mess. Food waste should be composted, which can be done at home in the Waste Management food waste bins. We do not currently have a composting program at our school.

Why recycle?

Recycling has many benefits for the environment and therefore for people. Recycling is a way of reusing materials in things we use every day. If we recycle, less garbage is sent to landfills, which take up huge amounts of space and contribute to many environmental problems.

Furthermore, landfills are incredibly expensive to build and maintain, costing upwards of $20 million of our tax money to build just one. Also, in the future, these dumps will be difficult to clean up, and many are beginning to leak toxic chemicals.

Recycled materials are made into new ones, which saves energy and resources as well as landfill space. And recycling even helps our school: we save a lot of money by sending less to the dump, which means more money can be spent on stuff for the school that we care about. So recycle! It’s good for your school, your world, and YOU.

4 Responses

1. 11:19 AM on March 22nd, 2007Latte:

   i lauf the cougar dah

2. 7:51 PM on June 18th, 2007Anonymous:

   well there is room 219 to do it.

3. 7:51 PM on June 18th, 2007Anonymous:

   there is room 219 to do it.

4. 7:53 PM on June 18th, 2007Anonymous:

   there is room 219 recylers to do it.

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