News : Creative writing and recycling: VSHS class spends 3 days sorting school waste

Sam Martin and Raechel Wehage with some of the items being recycled at VSHS.

Some photos of the recycling efforts, and the items saved for re-use...

The Vinton-Shellsburg High School creative writing class spent three days after the seniors last day separating all of the paper and trash that the students were throwing away during locker clean-out this past week. High school students Sam Martin and Raechel Wehage spent three class periods collecting and sorting reusable school supplies from papers that students had gotten during class and no longer wanted.

Martin and Wehage sorted the paper collection and weighed the recycling for each grade to determine which recycled the most material. They found that the freshman were able to recycle the most paper, followed by the juniors, than the sophomores. The freshman collection yielded 164.4 pounds of paper and school supplies. The juniors were collected 99 pounds of reusable supplies and paper, and finally, the sophomores with 82.8 pounds of recycling. Most of which was paper that could go to a recycling center, while the other half collected was almost all reusable school supplies. Altogether the school recycled 346.2 pounds of paper and school supplies.

The High school students did this to shed light on how much the Vinton-Shellsburg students discard, much of which can be sorted, recycled or reused. The two students want the school and the local community to realize that protecting the environment is a real problem and that it needs to be in every single person’s mind not to throw away but to recycle and reuse. Not only did they do this to help the environment, but also to help students who are not so lucky when it comes to buying school supplies. All of the school supplies that were saved from the trash, new and used, will be split between students in need of supplies for next year. They also want to show parents how most kids don’t even think twice about throwing brand new items away.

Martin and Wehage received support from Sandy Hamilton, Eric Upmeyer and custodians Melvin Hurst, Diane Lindsey and Andrew Noe.