Earth Day fell on Tuesday, April 22 this year so people all over the country did their part to be a bit greener. Although Freedom’s National Honor Society worked on the gardens outside the school, FHS as a whole didn’t do anything special for this day; however, there is something the entire school does in order to continuously help the environment. Instead of just one day of the year, FHS puts that one green foot forward every day—we recycle.
Approximately seven years ago, former FHS teacher Mr. David Hartman began this program. Since then, he has passed the torch to Mrs. Natalie Miles, the current high school Science Club advisor. In 2012, Mrs. Miles left the high school to teach English at the middle school, passing this responsibility to Ms. Jessika Fontaine, who then passed it on to the current holder, Mr. George Miklas.
On the last white day of every week, Miklas’s White block four class collects all of the papers from the recycling boxes in every classroom and empties them into the Paper Retriever Recycling dumpster in the rear of the school.
In order to encourage more people and businesses to recycle, Paper Retriever Recycling compensates the recyclers for their efforts. These profits at FHS go to the Science Club, appropriately.
“I think [we are compensated] per ton, but I honestly can’t remember. I have no idea what we make off of it but it’s hardly anything,” Miles said. “It’s certainly not worth doing for the money. We do it because it’s better for the environment.”
After collection, the papers are taken to be broken down, washed, pressed and rolled into large sheets of paper which are then sent off to locations in need, starting the process again.
FHS is not the only holder of these recycling bins. There are numerous drop-off locations in the immediate vicinity of our community.
Recycling is one of the simple things our community can do to help our environment.