How to start a functional school recycling program.?

Question

I'm a current student to one of the highschools in my area. And I've been learning alot of gloabal warming, and I've also noticed that our school loses alot of recyclable materials. So even though our school year is nearly over with, I'm trying to start a recycling program, where it will begin school year 2008-2009. I have a major outline, but I want some more ideas. My outline consists of having study hallways compete with one another for the most filled bins of recycable materials. At the end of each grading quarter, the bins will be counted up and whoever wins will get a reward of somesort. I also want an assembly in the begining of the year, to inform all the students who are lost about global warming, so I want a very interesting speech and slideshow, so if anyone can give me links to specific things of global warming, and how recycling helps, they would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Everyone.

P.S. If anyone has a negative remarks on global warming, you can leave.

=]

Answer 1

Most schools have frequent comunications that go out to parents, via handouts that get sent home, email and Web sites.  Ask for a small amount of space to include educational notes in these communications.  

Here are a few ideas on some thnigs you can do:

- Set up a blog that tracks your suggestions, and covers them in more detail.  Not only will you have more space to explain what you're proposing and why, but you can include links to other resources.

- Have at least a few of your efforts be aimed at raising funds (from recycled cans, glass and plastic) and some aimed at local mitigation efforts (planting trees or habitat restoration), so your progress can be tracked and the results can be clearly seen by all (for decades to come in the case of planted trees).

- Set measureable goals for your fund-raising, volunteer hours, and for what you'll accomplish with that budget and labor.  Be aggressive and optimistic when you're setting goals, and publish them.  Share your inspirational vision in your written communications and with everyone you talk to.  Don't be afraid to revise the goals upwards as soon as you appear on track to achieve them; it's antoher nidication of your success.

- Your local city and county government may have programs in place that can supply trees for free or at a discounted rate, if you can organize the volunteer labor to plant them.  If they have no such program, ask that they fund yours.  Local nurseries may also be willing donate some trees to create goodwill in the community.

- Determine whether you can set up a club at school and enable parents and local companies to make tax-deductible donations to it.  If not, identify an existing environmental organization (Sierra Club, etc) that will let you run your projects as local student members of their organization.

- Attend local Chamber of Commerce meetings, show local businesses what you're doing, and ask for donations and volunteer support.

- See if your local city government will support your efforts, since you can help them clean up trash and make the local environment healthier.  Perhaps they'll contribute some funds that will buy 50-100 T-shirts to give to the first few dozen volunteers at your events.  

- Your local PTA may have an annual charity auction to raise funds for educational supplies, extracurricular activities such as sports and clubs.  Ask them if you can have local businsses donate items to raise some of those funds for your activities.

- Once you have a way that people and businesses can contact you (such as through your blog), let your local paper know what your'e doing.  Update them periodically on your progress and on any upcoming volunteer or fund-raising events you have coming up.  After an article or two there, approach your major regional newspapers.

- Once you have some events on the calendar, perhaps a trash cleanup day, a tree planting day, a habitat restoration, and your first month-long can and bottle recycling drive, approach your local TV station, even before your first event happens, and ask them if they want to do a story.  They are hungry for new things to cover, and they love local and human interest stories (something positive for a change) so they'll probably at least send someone to capture a few minutes of video that they can discuss on the air.  They may however send a reporter to cover every one of your events (here's where dozens of volunteers wearing your T-shirts would be a great asset to have).

- Public TV stations love charitable causes and they may want to produce a longer story.  Tell them early so they can plan collect footatge at all of your events.  

- Most cable companies are required to provide a local cable access channel that anyone can use to broadcast information.  It may be available thorough one of the local city governments.  A surprising number of people run across programs on these channels and se them.  These channels have production facilities and often offer free trianing classes and use of their video and editing equipment.  You could produce some short videos to share tips, request donations (cans if not funds) and announce events.  Maybe they would be YouTube length at first, but eventually grow into regular 20 or 30 minute updates showing your progress and plans.

- Take notes as you go.  Identify and network with other school organizations that are doing similar things, to get good ideas.  Track what works for you and what doesn't, and consider setting up a second blog to advise and train other schools on how to run an effective program in their area.  If some schools set up new programs that learn from yours, Track that additional impact you're having so your supporters can see that bigger picture as well.

- Remember that you don't have to convince everyone to recycle.  It only takes one person in a household to collect, manage and return the recycleables.  The rest of the household only has to respect that person's request enough to drop recycleables in a particular bin.  If they are unwilling to show that tiny bit of respect, that's a valuable family issue to uncover and is well worth discussing.  (If it's a common problem, perhaps a local psychotherapist can advise you on what kinds of fears and insecurities could make someone that disrespectful, and can tell you how to advise their family members to approach them.)

- Remember that your ultimate goal isn't necessarily just to gather a lot of recycleables for return.  Your efforts can reduce power usage to manufacture cans, reduce environmental damage from mines, reduce gasoline consumption used to transport metal ore and cans and drink products, reduce waste (both in landfills and litter).  

- Encouraging people to use a reusable container such as a bike water bottle is far even productive than recycling a can that had to be mined, manufactured, shipped, filled, shipped, stored and sold, then (hopefully) collected for recycling.  Look into the incredible energy waste, water waste, and landfill load created by the billions of single use bottled water containers that are discarded each year, and educate people on how to avoid them.  

http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/121/bot...

- Sell a reusable bike water bottle with your recycling logo on it (or give one out in exchange for a paid membership).  Or just give one out that your sponsors have paid for.  A local bike shop may contribute the first batch if you let them put their name on it as well.  Make it uncool to be seen anywhere in town using the clear plastic ones.  Suggest water from your reusable water bottles as a health tip (show people how many calories come from drinks, and the extra weight they carry each year as a result).

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/...

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/...

http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/Drink-...

"A study from the University of North Carolina found that we consume 450 calories a day from beverages, nearly twice as many as 30 years ago! This increase amounts to an extra 23 pounds a year that we're forced to work off—or carry around with us."

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/relea...

- Check with your local trash collection and waste disposal company.  They may be willing to donate to your effort because it educates people on how to reduce waste, and you may save them from buying more trucks, save gas, etc.  Perhaps they would park some recycling bins at your school, but make sure that your group gets any proceeds from the material or deposit refunds.  They may also have educational materials that you can use.  They may even help you package and pitch this type of program at other schools in their coverage area.

- Run an art contest in your town for the design to put on the first T-shirts.  Have the city announce it with their trash collection utility bills, and put up a small cash award for the winner.  Run an art contest next school year for that year's T-shirt, for your group's recycling logo, and for the bike water bottles.  Have one of your sponsors fund a T-shirt art contest on MySpace and/or YouTube (gets you a new T-shirt design and lots of publicity).

- Local radio programs, particularly the morning talk shows that still include live hosts, may want to interview you, and often they like to broadcast from a van at a live event... why not one of yours?  Picking one of the more popular stations, and letting them donate stuff to give away (ask that anything they bring to give away includes both your logo and theirs), may make your shirts and water bottles even more popular around school and around town.  Having a variety of designs to your s***s (maybe more edgy ones for the radio station versions) make make them interesting to a wider range of people.  Over time, as a selection of your T-shirts become available, people may come to the volunteer events to see what new cool one might be available.  If your designs are creative enough, maybe a national retailer would want to license them and donate a percentage of profits towards recycling.

- Include other students and let everyone manage something: the relationship with city government, the school, the local trash utility, the PTA, the radio station, the Chamber of commerce, a T-shirt printing company (who could be your first sponsor, knowing that you'll probably order more), running an art contest, planning and organizing the events, managing the blog, managing a MySpace page, taking notes and publishing them somewhere so everyone can stay current, organizing and announcing meetings, designing a plan that you can hand to potential sponsors and to the media so you can present your goals and successes.  

- You may want to encourage some of your members to video tape meetings and some of the conversations with sponsors; it

Answer 2

Check the sports field after a soccer game; i've picked up over  5 dozen Gatorade and Powerade plastic bottles, - and not all from the kids. Maybe the kids can change the habits of their delinquent slob parents by posting littering signs appropriate to the school yards,by  incorporating  their family (and its alleged family values) into town-wide cleanup days, by PR -ing the local businesses to supply street furniture , pole- mounted for trash pickup and recycling, by pushing local politicians to write viable recycling ordinances.......