Reduce, reuse, recycle. These three words are engraved into our everyday lives, yet students at Palo Alto High School still fail to differentiate between trash, compost and recycling, creating unnecessary waste.
According to the Palo Alto High School janitor Regina Buckner, despite the colored bins, the students still misplace their trash.
“We don’t separate anything [in the recycling bin], wherever the students put in the trash. That’s what we take in, whatever the most is, that’s where we put it [in the dumpster than get gets picked up],” Buckner said. “It would be a big help if students separated their trash.”
This mix-up isn’t just a hassle for the staff; it also has larger environmental implications. Not recycling leads to increased landfill waste, resource depletion, energy consumption, and pollution and is a major contributor to climate change by increasing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the BBC, recycling has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by the equivalent of about 11 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually.
Micheal Cappello, a Palo Alto Public Works Department’s Zero Waste Initiative representative, the environmental cost of improper waste disposal is significant.
“Because of missorted waste, the contamination created often leads to an inability to divert those items — and all the items they have contained — from the landfill,” Cappello said. “So, putting one piece of waste into the wrong container may not seem like a big concern, but (when) thousands of people doing it adds up quickly.
Poor sorting by Paly students is not the only reason for this undue waste. Paly lacks anyone in charge of reducing waste, called zero-waste champions, unlike most other PAUSD schools.
“Zero Waste Champions work closely with the city’s waste hauler, GreenWaste of Palo Alto,” Capello wrote to Anthro. “They ensure adequate waste stations are established throughout the school, place new and easy-to-understand waste sorting signage with each station, conduct waste audits to see how the schools are doing with sorting their waste, and other zero waste practices.”
Unfortunately, the lack of a zero-waste champion has been ongoing for serval years.
“It’s been posted and no one jumps at it. Usually the district checks in with me every year we post it,” Berkson said.
“We could use help with recruiting a staff member at Paly to become your Zero Waste Champion, Cappello said. “If you can find a staff member who is passionate about the environment and wants to make a positive impact in your school, please send them our way.”
Many students think that if we as a student body decide to fight for more thoughtful sorting by our fellow students, we can make a difference.
“They just need to take some extra time to think about it,” Groden said.