By Katie MacBride, Staff Writer
The teacher is passing back quizzes and anxiety fills your body as you hear sighs of grief and happiness from surrounding peers. The teacher reaches you, slides your quiz on the desk upside down and you hesitate as you peek at the grade. After the teacher reviews the quiz, unsatisfied students ball their papers up and toss them in the recycling bin.
The good news is that no matter how high or low you scored on that quiz, it and the rest of First Flight’s recyclables will now be sent to the recycling plant. The school’s recycling had been put on hold for a couple of months after the Outer Banks was hit by hurricanes Michael and Florence in September and October. The town of Kill Devil Hills stopped picking up the school’s recycling to focus on picking up hurricane debris.
Due to postponed recycling, the Environmental Club was unable to start its program until the end of January. Junior Ivy Doyle, the club’s co-president, was disappointed to watch the school’s recycling pile up.
“It was really frustrating especially because people were actually putting their recycling where it goes and it just ended up going in the garbage,” Doyle said. “I knew there was something we could do about the waste, but it just wasn’t going to happen.”
Katie Neller, the Environmental Club’s sponsor, noticed that several teachers and students took recycling into their own hands as a short-term solution to the issue.
“As teachers and students we have always had the option that we can do our own recycling,” Neller said. “Just because (the town) won’t pick the recycling up here, we can bag it up in the classroom and take it somewhere else.”
With recycling being launched again, it is important for students to put their recyclables in the correct spots. Environmental Club members have to sort the materials put in the bins and bags. Many materials are thrown into the bins that aren’t recyclable and are much less appealing than that failed chem quiz or morning coffee you had to finish before class started.
“Pulling dirty tissues out of recycling bins, wet paper towels and food-covered containers are just a few (annoyances of sorting recycling),” Doyle said.
Next time you go to throw your waste away, in or out of school, take a second to think about whether you should put it in the recycling or the garbage.
“It is just so important (to recycle) and it makes such a difference,” Doyle said. “You really have to think about it when you have to decide where to throw your water bottles away.”
Sophomore Katie MacBride can be reached at 21macbrideka62@daretolearn.org.
