North Harford has students thinking twice about throwing their garbage away. A new arrangements all around the school has been implemented to encourage students and staff  to recycle efficiently.

    Science teachers Mrs. Kimberly Harris and Mrs. Laura O’Leary are in charge of the committee making these changes. However, other staff members are also supportive and participating in helping this change including Mr. Doug Heeter, Mr. Gregory Murrell, and building engineer Kevin McGibney. “So many people have been working to get this started,” says Harris.

    Multiple things prompted this adjustment. “Our observation that there was no recycling in the cafeteria number one, and then looking around the school, we had recycling bins around the school but, they weren’t paired up correctly.” Harris stated.

  Harris  explained, “We currently did not have recycling bins next to trash cans. We had a lot of sole trash cans and what that says is that you are supposed to throw everything in the trash. But, when you give students or teachers a choice they’ll make the right choice.”

    The biggest change is in the cafeteria, where there now is a sign that draws people’s attention and encourages them to recycle. There are two separate stations where students can recycle in the cafeteria.

    Next to every trashcan in the building there is now a recycling bin. The purpose of this is to separate out the paper for a certain dumpster.  The recycling of paper earns the school money. “All the money though, is really the secondary reason we’re doing this because the money is very minimal,” said Harris.  “The main reason is when you do single string recycling, which is you throw everything in one bin, any plastic, glass, paper, everything, single string recycling that’s great! However, the paper can’t be used just for paper recycling, the bottles can’t be used just for bottle recycling, so what we’re trying to do is we are trying to do single stream, but then we are trying pull out cans and pull out paper to kind of allow those products to be recycled into secondary product.”

    The money made from recycling will go towards various clubs. Each week they will donate the money to a different club.

    So far the new arrangement seems to be working successfully, at least a lot better than the past years, according to coordinators. “In the lunchroom, we have full bags every single lunch, of the bottle recycling,” Harris said.

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