This October, the Middle School’s Green Council launched a paper recycling program to combat the contamination that has plagued recycling efforts at Westminster for years.

Two years ago, the Green Council noticed a problem that continues today. Even if a student or teacher accidentally tosses an empty potato chip bag into the recycling bin, it contaminates the entire bin and the staff have to trash it all. Trash and recycling manager Laura Corey confirms the severity of the issue. “Nine out of ten recycling bins were contaminated with food,” she says, “and once trash is placed into a big recycling bin, it immediately has to be trashed.”

Green Council member and 8th grader Mihir Gupta says single stream recycling—the method where all different recyclable materials are collected in a single bin—is a major part of the contamination. “Now we’ve gotten to a point where we can start to take initiative to stop single stream recycling,” Gupta says. “[Single-stream] is very hard to do, because there is so much contamination going on and that was what was causing our problem.” 

When the Green Council decided to address the single stream recycling two years ago, they first added aluminum recycling bins to collect aluminum cans. Separating materials into dedicated bins, first aluminum, now paper, helps the Green Council move the Middle School away from single stream recycling. 

History teacher and Green Council advisor Jennifer Hogan says Green Council targeted paper next after seeing the lower school succeed. “We’ve decided to build off of the Lower School’s successes. We’ve had conversations with Ms. Corey about the best way to start paper recycling in the Middle School.” After they planned out what to do, the Green Council got to work.

The Green Council placed cardboard bins in each classroom, and placed larger bins by printers, because the printers were major sources of unused and wasted paper. If someone makes a mistake while printing, they can simply place it in the bin. Now every Tuesday, a designated student from their homeroom dumps the paper into a larger, clearly marked bin. Those large bins with all of the school’s recyclable paper are then taken to the Westminster trash and recycling facility.

Green Council hopes to continue revamping the Middle School’s recycling program by adding cardboard collection and by having the existing single-stream bins, which are confusing and misleading, removed from the building.