The recycling project started late last year and has reached some roadblocks. This was a new and innovative idea that was introduced to Patchogue-Medford High School on November 27,2017. The project sought to put bins in classrooms so plastics could be disposed of properly. But as Brooke Shellmen noted some people were not disposing of their things properly and were disposing of food items in the recyclable box. Brooke stated that “because that, the group now had to wash and clean boxes when things are being wrongly disposed of. This was the cause of  the set back.”

I asked Brooke why she started this project. “There were so many plastic water bottles were being thrown out every day especially when the student body is approximately around 2000,” that is a huge amount of water bottles being thrown out especially when they could be recycled. She saw how “bad the water bottle issue was, when watching a documentary in science. That documentary showed how the US doesn’t see the effects of plastic not being properly disposed of but, how other countries really see how not disposing properly of plastic can have drastic affects on the environment.” Brooke said that she has “always been passionate about the environment, and even as a young child she would always try to put in the effort to try recycle everything that could possibly be recycled.” She said that her whole family was environmentally conscious, so that was a factor in her passion for the environment. She hopes to major in environmental science in college.

Brooke and the other people that are a part of the recycling project hope to be able to put lids of the recycling bins, so hopefully that will decrease the number of wrongly disposed items. They also hope for the town to be able to put a dumpster outside the school. This will make it easier to dispose of all the plastic water bottles in away that is easy and will be much quicker.

Brooke had a conversation with Danny Gordon about wanting to start up a old club that was science theme but they later came to the conclusion to institute the recycling project. Brooke is a student member of the BOE and she credits that with making her quest, but she also credits Dr.R to being really supportive of the project and getting all the resources relatively quickly.

There are numerous ways to decrease your waste, one suggestion is “using a reusable water bottle.”  But if you do use a plastic water bottle always be sure to recycle it and not to throw it the garbage, but please do not throw other random items in the recycling bins that clearly do not belong in there. Putting a effort can really help this cause, Brooke said  “this club will really flourish if more people join. The more people that join the more people there are to help.”

The recycling project is a really innovative project that has a lot of potential and if more people join and help this project could go school wide. This project will really help decrease all the plastic water bottles being discarded not properly.