To try and help reduce the number of objects going to the landfill, Recycling Club students sort materials and empty recycling bins, something club members think is much more important in the current and coming years than before.

“I’m just a geography teacher, but when you historically look at the environment when I was growing up compared to today, it’s changed so much,” William Meuer, head of Recycling Club, said. “The lesson then was not to throw trash in the lake or litter, but now it has become so much more significant to our lives today and how much of a carbon footprint we leave.”

From the way students go to school, to how long they take a shower could impact our environment, Meuer said. Students in the recycling club try and decrease other people’s carbon footprint by collecting recycling from every classroom in South Campus. Currently, pollution is much more grave than earlier times, with increased waste such as take out food or water bottles.

“Even throwing a bottle in the recycling helps the environment bit by bit; a small thing can make a big difference,” Kelsey Murdoch ‘23, a student in the club, said. “Especially this year, trash is one of the biggest problems, there’s more pollution every single day. The environment is the one dictating how long civilization can live on the earth, so we need to take care of it.”

From the first week of school to the last, students were completing what adults could not, Meuer said. The adults created an illusion that items would be recycled if placed in the green bin when in reality, janitors were emptying both trash cans and recycling bins into the dumpster.

 If all students at South and North campus participated in taking one bin from each classroom to the dumpster, Lyons Township would be much more global friendly and would fill what the club does in one year to what the school could accomplish in one day every month, Murdoch said. 

“Whether we choose to ignore it or not, climate change and pollution are alive and real, and we have to do something about it,” she said.