School+considers+recycling+issues

School considers recycling issues Christina Staff writer In an era where it sometimes literally pays to go green the school is trying to also go green. The school does not have a policy for recycling and what the specific rules and regulations are for what goes into the green recycling bins. In most homerooms there are recycling bins, but some teachers have taken them out because they wonder if Burrell High School actually recycles. Some teachers have taken a different approach with their disbelief that Burrell recycles. “I have two bins for recycling in my room. Students use them in my room because I recycle. I collect the paper and deliver it myself to a facility that does recycle,” said reading specialist, Mrs. Slosky. It has been noted that most people do not believe the school recycles because they have seen the janitors dump the recycling bin and the garbage into one container, thereby concluding that there is no actual recycling program. Other teachers believe that some recycling takes place, but not in the expected way. Mr. Roberts, French teacher said, “The school recycles print cartridges because there is a financial incentive to do so. Not for paper and plastic and glass, probably because no one else does it in the community and there are no financial kickbacks.” Although, there is a possible reason for why the contents of recycling bins are not getting recycled, starting with the economic downslide. Mr. Grantz, a physics teacher, mentioned that the Westmoreland Cleanways Program has been cancelled. When the economy started to do badly, the recycling companies, including Westmoreland’s Cleanways Programs, also started to do badly. As the gas prices increased, the recycled papers and other recycled items became more expensive to retrieve. Then the price of the companies’ products started to rise. Unfortunately, a lack of demand for recycled papers means that other companies would be selling their new products for less based on the definition of supply and demand. The rising costs cause problems with the school and the recycling company because the company would not send the trucks to pick up the materials on the dates that were scheduled for the company to collect. Even though there is a separate container to be used for recycling that container may not get emptied for days on end and there is no other place to put the materials. Westmoreland’s Cleanway Program started with Unipaper. The company was later bought out to become Abitibi Bowater and the Paper Retriever Program. Problems with programs caused a break away to start a single stream of recycling with Greenstar. When the market collapsed the programs went away. To cut down on paper usage BHS is currently attempting making everything more electronic to cut down on waste of paper. Until a specific policy is put into place there will continue to be wasted paper that is not being recycled.