Greensburg Salem Middle School will save thousands of pounds of waste from going to a landfill every month with the introduction of a single-stream recycling program.
The city of Greensburg received a $5,000 “Think Green” grant from Waste Management and nonprofit organization Keep America Beautiful to buy recycling bins and educational materials for the students.
City Administrator Sue Trout said she was giving a talk at the middle school when students asked her how they could start recycling there. She partnered with several teachers and started working on getting the grant. The city received one of 39 “Think Green” grants awarded this year.
“It was a really good partnership between the city, the school and Waste Management,” she said.
The school kicked off its recycling program Nov. 1.
Last week, students filled an 8-yard dumpster with recyclables, and science teacher Jason Robertson, who runs the program, said he expects them to do the same about once a month.
That equates to up to 3,000 pounds of recyclable material a year that would otherwise end up in a trash heap.
“I've been here for a few years now and always thought it would be nice to get a recycling program going,” Robertson said. “Meeting Sue opened the doors to make it happen.”
The middle school has never recycled before. None of the other schools in the district have a building-wide recycling program.
At the kickoff, representatives from Waste Management taught all the middle school students about the importance of recycling and what kind of materials can be recycled.
Robertson is the faculty sponsor of the school's new “Green Club,” a group of about 25 students who go to classrooms emptying the recycling bins.
Recycling is an important skill for kids to learn early, Trout said.
“We need to recycle. It's our job as citizenry to promote recycling,” she said.
Jacob Tierney is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-836-6646 or jtierney@tribweb.com.
