Thursday, February 26, 2009 By Sonya Choi - Gina Song Advertising Why don't we recycle anymore? (January 26, 2007) -- In 2000, Clark’s now defunct Recycling Club was started to help the environment. Members of the club contacted the City of Glendale and received blue recycling bins to distribute to classrooms. During enrichment, members would collect the blue containers and dump their contents into curbside bins. Then, in 2004, Recycling Club disappeared; the only tributes that they left behind were the blue recycling bins that are still inside many classrooms. Why did Recycling Club end? Was the club low on funds? Did this mean there will be no more recycling? The reason lies in the Glendale Unified School District’s decision to contract with Consolidated Disposal Service, which was willing to pay for the district’s recyclables. All the trash in the school is sent to the company. Then, on a central conveyer belt, the materials are separated from the other trash. The materials are recycled and the other trash is sent to landfills. The City of Glendale used to support all GUSD schools that recycled. According to Tom Brady, the city’s recycling coordinator, round, plastic containers, (specifically for bottles and cans) with lockable lids were distributed to 10-15 schools in the district. Student groups from the schools emptied the recyclables into plastic curbside bins for trucks to pick up or took them to a nearby recycling center. The cans and bottles were then converted into money to support the school. In a way, recycling was a type of fundraiser for some schools. The City of Glendale sent composting bins as well as plastic containers for bottles and cans. The plastic containers were mostly put into classrooms to collect classroom disposables. Composting bins were used outdoors. In schools with gardens, 164-gallon composting bins were used to discard unwanted and unneeded materials. These composting bins were found mostly in elementary schools where students spent more time outdoors. Students were able to see critters and fungi decomposing the dead vegetation. According to Brady, the Integrated Waste Management Office used to supply both private and public schools with plastic containers for the classrooms. However, after the GUSD contracted with the Consolidated Disposal Service, the Integrated Waste Management Office removed all the plastic containers from public school classrooms. The private schools in Glendale still receive aid from the City of Glendale and some have plastic containers in their classrooms, however, and public schools can also request plastic containers to recycle bottles and cans for fundraisers.

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