Cut the Waste!

Ms. Pierce's class is involved in a two-year Service Learning project to improve our sustainability. We've done a bunch of stuff, including identifying ways to reduce our waste. We did a waste audit and it showed that a lot of our trash was paper towels and napkins. We asked Mr. Keller, our custodian, and Gwen Lyons-Baker of Central VT Solid Waste Management District - she’s our community partner - if there were some way to recycle paper towels. Guess what!? They said “Yes”! Our school is the first school in a state capital to do this program to recycle paper towels

. It’s called the Power of 3 Program.

Here’s how it works. Mr. Keller will set up special blue bags so when we use paper towels, they will be recycled instead of going into the trash. Casella picks up the School’s recycling and brings it to the recycling plant. Then the reusable stuff is shipped to SCA Tissue which turns it into cleaning products made from 100% recycled materials. They ship the products to Foley Distributing, who sells new paper towels to places like our school. We get our paper now from all around the country but when we switch over, we will reduce our carbon footprint a lot because all the paper will come just from Glens Falls, NY.

We are also switching brands to paper towels and to toilet paper made from 100% recycled paper towels.

Another thing. We are getting new paper towel dispensers. One reason is that the ones we have now are automatic and that takes a lot of batteries. Mr. Keller has a huge bucket of dead batteries. We are going to go to the older style with no electricity.

OK. Field trip time! Mr. Keller needed to get training on how to set up the paper towel recycling. This trip was really for him to learn about the recyclable paper towels but he offered to take us because he knew that our class (Mrs. Pierce’s class) has done a lot of work reducing waste in the school. Mrs. Pierce held an essay contest to decide who could go and we (Chloe and Gabe) won!

First we went to Foley to see the new paper towel dispenser. We were the only ones on the tour and we got to see their warehouse where they store all their different types of cleaning supplies. Oh also, they fed us a pizza lunch and treated us very well!

Then we went to Casella’s new Zero-Sort recycling facility in Rutland. It can recycle 15 tons in one hour and only takes 14 people to run. Casella’s Zero-Sort program helps to get more people recycling. There used to be 12 different bins for different types of materials and people didn’t want to take the time so now the Zero-Sort program means people just dump it all in the same bin. We don’t send our stuff to the new facility in Rutland but if we did we could recycle milk cartons and juice boxes.

The field trip was the day of the opening of the new Casella plant in Rutland. Governor Shumlin showed up to cut the ribbon but he was really late. It was cool meeting the Governor, it was the best part of the day! Next to pizza, maybe.

Update: Mr. Keller has installed all the new towel dispensers. We are getting pretty close to starting the whole recycling project. We want to get closer to being a zero-waste place. Our teacher is CVSWD’s Zero Hero!

-Gabe and Chloe