The school year may be wrapping up, but that doesn’t mean that a building can’t start a new program, especially when a tenacious eighth grader is the driving force behind it.
When Julianna Baratta entered Willink Middle School at the start of the school year, she saw pallets stacked with boxes of paper that the school would be using during 2008-09 and wondered what would happen to it all after the students and staff were done using it.
A regular recycler at home, she wanted to carry over her mission of being environmentally conscientious to her school. She thought about different ways to improve the recycling efforts at Willink and about two months ago she approached interim Principal Michael Gutter with an idea. Working together with Student Council advisor Brian Powers and head custodian John Hoefen they came up with a plan to get a sampling of just how much paper the school would need to recycle during the course of a year.
For one week they asked only the Red House teachers to encourage their students to recycle their papers, and on Wednesday and Friday of that week Student Council volunteers collected their recycling bins.
“We looked at what we had for one week for a quarter of the building. There were five full bins with paper. If that’s typical for one quarter of the school then we would have roughly over one thousand bins of recycled paper a year at school,” Powers estimated.
Based on these estimates, the group determined that at this time the school doesn’t have the massive paper storage that would be necessary to conduct a weekly school-wide collection.
“We recycle cans and bottles. We recycle all of our florescent light bulbs. We recycle most of the cans that come out of the kitchen and the cardboard too,” Hoefen said. “If we improve the efficiency of our paper recycling we’re going to have to get a larger container for the ultimate collection.”
Also to be factored in is a contractor to haul the paper to a recycling facility, and the internal manpower to gather it all.
“We’re trying to determine now if we can harness the student body. If we can get the kids to help with collection it will be a win-win situation,” Hoefen said.
Right now the Student Council is willing to help and Powers said the school hopes to create a Go Green Club to help with future collections.
Thus the group is undaunted, determined to continue with the recycling efforts even if it’s on a small scale.
Baratta explained that the Student Council, of which she is president, will continue to collect the paper twice a week but from rotating houses within the school.
“The staff response has been great,” said Powers.
“The student voices carried it farther to the students and to the teachers,” Gutter said.
“They’re not just asking for it to happen. They want to do it, they’re willing to get their hands dirty,” Powers added of the students. “Some eighth graders see it as their legacy.”
Given that Baratta will be leaving the halls of Willink in just a few short weeks, it would have been easy for her to let the program slide. But she’s passionate about recycling and taking care of her planet.
“In science we’re learning about ecology and our impact on the environment. We’re trying to be a more eco-friendly school,” she said.
“It sets us up for success. Some say why start now, but we have to start to drive it forward,” Gutter noted.