You may be under the impression that Olathe West is a “green” school, considering we have a recycling can in every classroom and are home to the Green Tech 21st Century Academy. Our principal, Jay Novacek assured me we recycle…at least sometimes.
“The day-to-day recycling is driven by our students and the recycling club,” Novacek said.
However, despite these facts, we do not currently recycle.
“Over the years [Olathe West] has been a very green school,” Novacek said.
The previous advisor of the recycling program, Matthew Milholm, said the program has stopped meeting since the middle of the second semester of last year.
The recycling program was rebooted by Milholm in 2021 after it had been unneeded during the lockdown of Covid-19. Max Palmer was a former member of the recycling club.
“We took the [recycling] cans around and we put the recycling in it, and then we took it to the bins,” Palmer said.
Although the task seemed simple enough, there was not enough of an initiative to continue the club.
There are approximately 1,500 students enrolled at West, each of which uses paper, drinks out of aluminum cans and uses plastic cutlery and cups every day; and apart from the occasional recycling drive done by Green Tech, it is all being sent to the landfill.
Recycling would result in less waste going to landfills as well as less waste incineration, both of which cause air and water pollution in our already heavily polluted world.
Incineration of waste results in increased carbon dioxide emissions. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, recycling and composting decreased the United States’ Carbon Dioxide emissions by over 193 million metric tons. This results in a less polluted world and lower consequences of climate change.
Climate change isn’t just a buzzword; it is having real effects on our world. According to NASA, sea ice all around the world—but specifically in Antarctica—is melting, sea levels are rising fast and heat waves as well as droughts are becoming more frequent. It is not too late to curb the effects of climate change.
West has the duty to be a part of saving our environment and, consequently, our world.
There is a simple solution for how Olathe West can pay its toll to the future of our world. The recycling club will be active once again, after winter break. There will be an informational meeting early next semester, and then they will start having regular meetings where they take out the recycling collected at West.
For more information on the recycling club email the author– Violet Vallad– at [email protected].
