Keep Recycling, MHS!

By Sara Yavas

You have probably heard people say that there is no point in recycling at MHS because it “all goes to the same place anyway,” or that it is not worth the effort because the janitors “put it all in the same trash can anyway.” As it turns out, these rumors are not true.

Bill Foust, the Facilities Director at the McFarland School District, told the Spotlight that the recyclables do indeed get recycled, and Valerie Dederich, an administrative assistant, explained the details of how recycling is handled at MHS. Ms. Dederich mentioned that the janitors often only use one garbage can to collect the school’s waste; however, this is NOT because they throw all of it away. They collect the bags of recycling/garbage from rooms and put them in the same can, but outside, the custodians separate the bags of recycling and of garbage and put them into their respective dumpsters. She told the Spotlight that “each school has dumpsters for garbage and dumpsters for recycling,” and that our school has two trash dumpsters and one recycling dumpster. From there, the recyclables are first taken to the Waste Management in Madison, then they are loaded to the WM Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) in Germantown, Wisconsin, where they are sorted.

Upon arriving at the MRF, the recyclables are initially all mixed together. Disc screens first separate the papers from other recyclables. From there, screens and people sort the paper. Meanwhile, magnets collect metals from the mix of other containers; a screen then breaks and removes glass. Optic sorters then sort out the types of plastic that are left.

While it may be a long process, recycling has many benefits to the environment: saving resources and energy, reducing pollution, and limiting waste in landfills. Annually, our school district produces about 7.8 tons of recycling and 12.9 tons of garbage. So rest assured, efforts to be more green at our school are not wasted.