Emily Price, AP Environmental Science teacher, is kick-starting a plan to recycle paper and plastic by involving students in the effort.

All classrooms have waste containers–one for recyclable materials and one for garbage. However, there is no guarantee that recyclable materials like paper actually make it into recycling dumpsters provided by CR&R, the garbage company.

If Price’s plan works in the science department, it could be cloned school-wide.

In the first step, students learn the difference between paper and garbage. Once they form the habit of putting the recycling in the right container, student “monitors” take the paper to the CR&R dumpsters by the basketball courts during tutorial. The method is the same for every period. All classes participate during their assigned tutorial.

“I want to help our environment by recycling paper. During tutorial, [the] monitors assign volunteers to go down, and recycle the trash,” said Melica Kajeh.

On their way to the dumpsters the volunteers pull the bottles out and place them in the plastic bottle recycle bins out in the quad where they can be collected by Environment Club. A portion of the proceeds help pay for the school newspaper’s publication costs.

Instead of spending time emptying recycling containers, custodians could spend their time doing other tasks.

Some custodial staff at SJHHS say that they don’t have time to separate recycling. At least one claimed that nothing but paper can go into the recycling containers, according to Rita Kolenic, Science Department Chair. But that isn’t true according to CR&R pamphlets.

According to CR&R Waste and Recycling Services the following items can be placed in recycle bins: paper, magazines, phonebooks, soft bound books, hard bound books, junk mail, newspaper, envelopes, file folders, cardboard, paper food boxes, paper food boxes, aluminum, tin, aerosol containers, glass, and plastics.