Rachel Cernansky
DCL
New York City schools have been legally required to recycle since 1989, but until recently, the only schools that actually did were ones in which faculty members took it upon themselves to implement the practice.
How NYC School Recycling Really Got Going
Enter Micki Josi and Coquille Houshour in 2005, both New York City Teaching Fellows at the time and both working in schools that did not recycle. So they got to work. They wrote grants to get new recycling bins (most schools had bins as a result of the 1989 law, but used them for trash and they often became too soiled to be repurposed?to their original purpose), they worked with custodians and their principals, they formed student green teams, and they won Golden Apple Awards.
But they would talk outside of school and realize they were facing the same obstacles: each continued to face difficulties with school custodians and with the Department of Sanitation. As they got to know more teachers and see more schools, they saw it was a systemic problem. So two years ago, they reached out, and had a surprising turnout at their first meeting of Educating Tomorrow: 20 people crammed around a small table in a Brooklyn café. It was really exciting and energetic, Josi remembers, and was attended by a representative from NYC councilmember Bill de Blasio's office, which helped them progress to the next step, a rally at City Hall.
Eventually, they established a relationship with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which allowed them to host meetings in their Manhattan office and establish the UFT Green Schools Committee).
What Does Effective School-Wide Recycling Look Like?
The education chancellor's regulations on school recycling were rewritten, and called for all principals to appoint a recycling coordinator in every school. The committee organized trainings for the coordinators and for custodians, and recycling is finally becoming a common practice around the city. Josi recalls that when she changed from her first job, none of the schools she had interviewed with had recycling; two years later, "every school I applied to had recycling programs."
Success!
This year also saw the UFT's first Earth Day celebration?significant because it made the UFT newsletter, which reached a lot more teachers than were previously aware of the green committee?and another event in March that hosted the Department of Education Sustainability Committee founder.
What's up for this year? Lots, Josi says: getting teachers more training, continuing to plan partnerships, giving the Department of Education a presence in the effort and bringing green into the classroom, so that kids understand the importance of the practices they're learning to adopt. "Greening the schools can happen from all different fronts, it can be administrative, it can be custodians, managers?but it's up to educating students, bringing a green curriculum into their classrooms."
She said, "Without educating kids on environmental issues, there's the why?why are we teaching kids about recycling?"
But they are teaching kids, and it seems to be working. She has seen kids take leadership on recycling, with one student even taking over an office and issuing recycling awards to students and teachers. "The biggest thing is how they're talking about how they make their families recycle at home?having recycling in school means you're going to effect residences and families."
