This school year, I’ve noticed a lack of recycling bins at my high school, NDA. As an open-minded school, I was sure that there was a good reason for this. The reason behind this is that when food is thrown into the recycling bins, an extra fee must be paid so that the recycling company can effectively repurpose the paper and plastic. Obviously, this is not beneficial to the school and therefore it is difficult to incorporate them. However, I think that there are still ways that we can use recycling bins without running into that problem. 

Every year, 46 million tons of paper are recycled because of recycling bins. Since people are not eating in the classrooms, I think that it would be extremely effective to bring these bins back to save the maximum amount of paper, water, and other resources. As for the lunchroom, the recycling bins could be clearly labeled with what can and cannot go in, along with having a closed top so people wouldn’t think about throwing food in. Another option is to have a dedicated space for recycling bins in the lunchroom. That way, it would be easier to keep the trash and plastic separate. Making these small efforts in our community would help reduce pollution, and help NDA become a greener community. 

After talking with my principal, she told me the news that NDA is switching to a more recycling friendly company. When we came back from February break, there were recycling bins all throughout the school! We will now have the opportunity to save pounds and pounds of paper, water, and pollution with all these new bins. 

As the world grows warmer, it is important for all of us to do our part in keeping our communities as clean as possible to prevent worsening effects of climate change.  

Image: Sigmund, Unsplash, 31 October 2020.