Liberty High School sets standard for recycling
The Clark County School District is getting serious about recycling, and Liberty High School is leading the way.
Liberty, 3700 Liberty Heights Ave., hosted its inaugural Green Week Oct. 15-19, promoting recycling and energy conservation among students and faculty members. To cap off the week, Republic Services' life-size robot, MRFY, pronounced "Murphy," visited the school. The robot's name is a play off of the material recovery facility that processes co-mingled or single-stream recycling.
The school district chose Liberty as its pilot school for Green Week because of how far along it was already in terms of recycling, conservation and sustainability, said district recycling specialist Katie Duffy.
Green Week featured guest speakers during science classes, informational booths from community partners at lunches, games such as an aluminum can toss and prizes for being spirited, such as wearing a lot of green or being "caught" recycling.
Liberty's Environmental Awareness Club organized the events, led by adviser David Butler, a U.S. history and philosophy teacher. Butler started the club seven years ago and said he has always been an advocate for the environment. He started a recycling program as a student at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo.
He started teaching at Liberty 10 years ago and said, at the time, there was no system in place within the district to support recycling and conservation.
"One hand didn't know what the other hand was doing," Butler said. "Everybody was trying to do something, but there was no coordinated effort.
"I just wanted to take it from a holistic approach - energy conservation, recycling, sustainability, purchasing of recyclable materials."
Butler said the school has a goal of recycling 90 percent of all materials it receives. He said teachers turn off lights and computers when not in use, and custodians are quick to clean up athletic facilities and shut off the lights immediately following a game.
"That saves hundreds," Butler said.
The school also has recycling bins in every classroom, which are emptied by members of the EAC. And for every red trash can in the courtyard, there is a blue recycling bin next to it.
If anything exemplifies Liberty's change in attitude toward recycling over the past few years, it is the Dumpsters behind the school. There used to be three Dumpsters for trash and one for recycling. Those numbers have switched.
Schools can save a lot of money by recycling more, said Republic Services spokeswoman Tracy Skenandore. The company charges schools less to pick up recycling than standard trash. The school does not even have to separate the recyclables because an automated system at one of Republic Services' two local recycling centers does that.
Duffy said she plans to start two more pilot programs at the elementary and middle school levels and "make a playbook out of each of the pilot schools for others to follow suit."
Mack Elementary School, 3170 Laurel Ave., would likely be the next school in November, followed by Burkholder Middle School, 355 W. Van Wagenen St., early next semester. Those schools and the timeline are subject to change.
Duffy said the school district's operations and maintenance departments saved more than $1 million in the past two years by increasing its recycling efforts, and she expects the district to save more money as more schools participate.
Liberty junior Vincent Ackerman won the prize for being the most spirited, wearing a full-body green spandex suit on the last day of Green Week. Attitudes toward recycling are improving, students say, but Ackerman's enthusiasm is rare.
"(Recycling) is not that big, not at all," said EAC member and Liberty senior Samantha Banz, who moved recently from Portland, Ore. "In Oregon, it was just normal to recycle. In Oregon, if you don't recycle, it's crazy. Here, everybody just throws it anywhere."
For recycling tips, visit republic
servicesvegas.com.
Contact View education reporter Jeff Mosier at jmosier@viewnews.com or 702-224-5524.
