The City of Santa Monica offers a free recycling
program for each and every school within city
limits. Each school, public or private, large
or small, has a different approach and there are no
correct or incorrect way to do things.
However, there are many easy steps that can be taken
to save time and avoid undue burdens for those
involved in the process. Take a moment to
review the following.
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Step
1: Leadership
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To ensure success there should be an
individual that coordinates the school recycling
program. That leader should
contact us
to get
started.
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Step
2: Recycling Infrastructure: |
City staff will work to setup or improve upon
existing collection infrastructure for you
school.
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Step
3: Classroom Collection Suggestions: |
Option 1: Student Collection w/Supervision:
classroom containers (provided by the city) are
collected by students at a prescribed time and taken
to a staging area adjacent to the trash/recycling
bins. Then, with supervision, the students take the
material out to the recycling bin and return to the
classroom with the empty collection container.
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Option 2: Student Collection w/Assistance:
classroom containers are collected by students and
taken to a staging area adjacent to the
trash/recycling bins. The student returns to the
classroom with an empty collection container (stack
of empties provided at the staging area). At a later
time, a custodian, parent volunteer, or coordinating
teacher empties the collection containers into the
bin and places the empty containers in a stack for
the following collection cycle.
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Option 3: Custodial Staff Collection:
Classrooms and administration collection
containers are serviced by custodians.
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Step
4: Recycling Education: |
Every program has just a few rules
the students and staff need to follow.
Additionally, people also may
have some questions that need to be addressed. There
should be some plan as to how to get the word out
about the program. There are many options, here are
two:
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Option 1: Student In-service: Because most
collection programs on campus are performed by
students, there should be a student lead educational
component. A select group of students are chosen to
perform a five minute classroom in-service for each
classroom on campus; need to stress reasons to
recycle, recycling procedure, myths, and
trouble-shooting procedure. Student Council can
draw-up some posters that can be distributed to
reinforce the messages. The effort would be
supported by Santa Monica staff. Drawbacks: training
and presentation effort take time and dedication.
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Option 2: Flyer Distribution to Teachers
w/Support: Teachers are given information that would
be discussed in class individually at the teacher’s
discretion. This effort can be reinforced with
student council posters and/or public address system
announcements, etc. This effort would be supported
by Santa Monica staff. Drawbacks: students are less
involved and the message and program participation
level can be diminished somewhat without clear
student leadership.
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Step
5: Administration Collection: |
School
administrators should be diverting their
recycling waste as well as the students. This
collection should be done weekly. How this
collection would take place would require some
though.
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Step
6: Playground Collection: |
Playground collection of beverage & food
containers can be set-up upon request.
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Aluminum beverage cans and food cans.
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Steel/tin food and beverage cans (e.g. fruit, soup).
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Clean aluminum foil and foil food trays
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Contacts:
Andrew Basmajian, Environmental Outreach Coordinator
Phone (310) 458-8916
Email:
andrew.basmajian@smgov.net
Wes Thompson, Solid Waste Supervisor, Solid Waste
Management Division
Phone
(310) 458-8546
Email:
wes.thompson@smgov.net |
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