The View

Composting Begins

Tuesday, October 19, 2010 By Joseph Eckhart

On Monday October 18th, Mountain View High School unveiled its new recycling program. Several years ago the school implemented a program in which paper, plastic, aluminum, and glass were separated in to two bins. With the beginning of this new program, there will be four bins in four stations in the cafeteria and lunch areas. A clear bin will be set up for the collection of empty milk cartons. A large green bin, similar to the yard waste bins located in houses around Clark County, will house the compostable materials. The blue topped containers that we already have in our student center will act as containers for plastic bottles. The last component of our stations will contain a grey garbage can, same as the ones already there, that will contain any mass that cannot be composted or recycled. Compost is a collection of organic material (this consists of animal and plant matter, including paper) that will break down overtime to form nutrient rich soil, which is ideal for gardens. This is a great way to recycle food scraps such as apple cores, banana peels, lettuce, and so on. Some items that cannot be recycled are candy bar wrappers, tin foil, plastic baggies, etc. These materials need to be placed in the garbage. Students and teachers will be on campus during lunch and tutorial to monitor the stations and make sure everyone is placing the right items in their correct home. When students put all items away correctly they will be given a raffle ticket that can be entered in a drawing for a pass to the very front of the lunch line. The hope is that through this monitoring, students will learn where items belong and can correctly comply to help prolong this program. As long as we have the help and support of the wonderful people who make up Mountain View High School, this new recycling program will help divert large sums of garbage from the landfill. This program is sponsored by Save Organics Scraps (S.O.S.). They have generously supplied containers, signs, and hard work to help publicize this new step in Thunder Recycling. So next time you go to throw your lunch away, make sure your use the right container to get rid of unwanted items.