Although New Jersey is visible to anyone in the Stuyvesant building, few people know that the state is home to landfills containing over four million tons of New York’s garbage—one-tenth of which could have been recycled. In a society where Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio travel the world to raise awareness about global warming, recycling is becoming increasingly important as well, especially in schools.
According to a New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) study, New Yorkers toss 300,000 tons of paper into trashcans instead of recycling bins each year. Recycling that paper would have saved enough energy to light 300,000 homes for an entire year.
Instead, the unrecycled the paper disintegrates in landfills and releases methane, a highly flammable gas that combines with air to form explosive mixtures. Methane significantly contributes to global warming because it is 23 times more damaging to the ozone layer than carbon dioxide.
Even though tossing your soda bottle into a normal garbage can may seem routine, such behavior is not only irresponsible but also illegal. All New York City schools are legally required to establish effective recycling programs and to teach students the importance of recycling. Sadly, many schools have failed to meet this standard.
“School recycling is an absolute mess. The schools that have motivated staff and a good relationship with their custodians can make recycling work, but since schools have so many competing priorities, it is hard for schools to put recycling front and center,” said Marni Aaron, the Deputy Director of Public Education for the DSNY.
Stuyvesant is no exception. “[Sorting waste] just falls by the wayside unless it’s promoted,” said technology teacher and Stuyvesant’s recycling program advisor Richard Realmuto.
When the new building opened in 1992, Stuyvesant was very involved with reducing and recycling waste. With the help of Stuyvesant students and the DSNY, Realmuto set up several recycling initiatives, including paper re-use centers in offices, and petitioned the Board of Education to use more recycled paper.
“We even weighed everything that we collected, and then we were able to take the statistics and we actually had charts showing […] how much paper was recycled every month,” said Realmuto. This process was greatly dependent on support from the student body. “It’s really a student’s activity. If and when students are involved, that’s really when something’s going to happen,” he said.
Only three years ago, students at Stuyvesant were very involved in recycling. In 2004, Matthew Ritter (’05) founded the reSTUYclers club, dedicated to increasing paper and ink cartridge recycling at Stuyvesant. “In Mr. Realmuto’s class […] they watched a video about recycling and that gave Matthew the inspiration to start the club,” said senior and Matthew Ritter’s brother Scott Ritter, who joined the reSTUYclers his freshman year.
The members of the reSTUYclers helped the custodial staff sort paper waste and recyclable bottles and to raise awareness about recycling. “We’d go around to each classroom and take all the paper about the blue recycling bins,” said Scott Ritter, “and bring it all downstairs and put it in a bag for the custodians to recycle.”
Unfortunately, the club disbanded after the 2004-2005 school year. “After Matthew left,” Scott Ritter said, “nothing really happened. It never started up the next year.”
Zharna Shah (’06) was at Stuyvesant when the reSTUYclers were active. “After a while a lot of kids lost interest because it requires a lot of time and energy,” she said.
Recycling is not something that students can afford to lose interest in. With environmental crises looming closer, Stuyvesant needs to make a conscious effort to reduce waste, starting with paper. Classes can set up “paper reuse centers” and use minimally used sheets of paper as scrap. Teachers and students should print on both sides of paper and avoid double spacing when possible.
“We only have this one earth” said sophomore Bibi Lewis, “and if we don’t take care of it now, who knows what will happen to it in the future.”