Environment

Students Push for Composting

By Chelsea Rice

BROOKLINE— While visiting relatives in San Francisco this summer, Eli Bloch admired the city’s recycling and composting systems.

The sophomore at Brookline High School and Roi Arkori-Karlinsky, a fellow sophomore, approached town officials early this month to propose a change in recycling. But officials at the Solid Waste Advisory said town composting and single stream recycling systems weren’t possible for another two years because of a lack of land resources for composting and lower paper quality the recycling will produce.

“So for now we thought a good place to get started was the high school,” Bloch said.

Brookline schools have increased their recycling by 50 percent this year, and more than tripled their output of paper recycling, according to the Solid Waste Advisory Committee. But high schools have been less successful than the elementary schools, which have designated recycling faculty members and promoted education with field trips to the recycling centers.

Students in the Environmental Action club are trying to create a compost program at the school in the next year to reduce trash levels and to save the town money.

“I wanted to make a bigger impact and not just do it in the school,” said Karlinsky, who joined the environmental club last year after his history teacher showed him how humans are using up the earth. “It is kind of scary the way we are wasting the resources.”

Seventy percent of American trash is compostable, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Last year, the town collected 10,990 tons of trash, which cost $156 per ton to dump in landfills, according to the Solid Waste Advisory Committee.

The town is trying to reduce the waste in landfills, said Ed Gilbert, the town official on the committee.

At the high school each week, students in the environmental club empty the paper recycling bins in the classrooms and the comingle (all plastic, glass and aluminum) receptacles on each hallway, which the town provided this year.

“I like the idea of kids taking care of their surroundings,” said John Dempsey, a retired principal and member of the committee. “It teaches them that they aren’t above taking the trash out.”

Despite the benefits to composting, the committee said Brookline does not have an area large enough to compost the town’s food waste. The mayor implemented single stream recycling (which does not sort recyclable materials) in the City of Boston this year. Although it is more convenient, it would earn $12,000 less town revenue a month, according to the committee’s research.

“We just don’t have the capacity to do it yet,” Gilbert said.

In the schools, the committee said that the main difference between the progress at the elementary and high schools is the students.

“It’s because [high school students] are already involved in so many activities,” said Adam Mitchell, a member of the committee. “It needs to be institutionalized at the administrative and custodial level.”

School custodians said they are already understaffed and cannot help more. If the students want recycling efforts to increase, it should be their responsibility, said Bob Larkin, senior custodian at Brookline High School.

The committee recommended that Bloch and Karlinsky organize an audit to engage the students and encourage them to get involved.

“A majority of kids do not recycle, because it’s a hassle, or they don’t really care or they don’t really know,” Karlinsky said. “People are reckless and they don’t tend to listen, but you do get through to some and it makes it worth it.”