According to Record Nations, schools around America consume 32 billion sheets of paper per year. In addition, 530,000 tons of food is wasted annually in schools.

In this country, we are constantly wasting valuable resources, instead of thinking about how it could help us. It might not seem harmful, but it does negatively affect our planet. 

School is one of the places where we waste the most, from our food to our graded assignments. How can we fix that though? It’s all up to us students, we are capable enough to do the right thing and give back to the community. 

If Judson started a recycling organization, not only would we help the community, but it would also educate the community. 

“We can’t assume that every student has a recycling bin at home and knows how that works. A recycling program is a great way to educate our kids, and our teachers and give back to the community and our environment,” Principal Richard Mendoza said.

We could start off small by recycling paper, since it’s abundant at our school, according to Mendoza. Teachers have so many sheets of paper around their class and don’t know what to do with it. When students get graded papers back, most of them throw them away. But why not recycle it instead?

To start a recycling program at Judson, it would require a group of people and disciplined students to help organize this. Through dedication, fundraising and rigorous planning this could grow into a very positive program for our community. 

The idea is to have recycling bins in each classroom, that way every student comes across it. At the end of the week, an organization gets together and goes and picks up every bin. After those bins are collected, the advisor could go ahead and drop that off at the nearest recycling center drop off.

According to the Texas school recycling guide, some of the districts that have started a recycling program have cut on waste disposal costs. So not only does it help the environment but also the school’s economy. The most the school would spend to start this program is purchasing the recycling bins. But there’s always other ways to get bins.

Getting hands on recycling bins would be the most time consuming part, but there’s many resources. Of course the easiest and fastest way would be to buy them, but donations from others are always accessible. According to Recycling Bin, many local and state governments offer grants for schools to start a recycling program, which could also be helpful. 

Although Judson doesn’t have a recycling program at the moment, that doesn’t mean you can’t start recycling on your own. Starting one paper at a time, you can make a small change, to help our big Earth.