CVHS wins green ribbon award after waste audit

With the hard work of the smart energy club combined with leadership, CVHS has been awarded a green ribbon award and $2,500 from the Castro Valley Sanitary District.

CVHS is one of the last schools in the district to be green ribbon certified.

“It was embarrassing,” said Deborah Yager, head of the smart energy club. “We were the only school in the district that did not have the green ribbon.”

Earning the award involved examining the school’s waste and finding ways to recycle more of it.

“It took us over four hours to sort one day’s worth of trash from the school. We opened every trash bag and worked,” said Yager.

The Smart Energy club held a waste audit to sort through all the trash and find what can be recycled. The club sorted plastics papers and cans to try to open the eyes of the CVHS community. A stunning 60 percent of the trash at CVHS should go to compostable food waste instead of going to the landfill.

“I think the school should work harder to fix the trash problems at CVHS,” said sophomore Savanah Khan. “There is a lot of trash here.”

The last thing that CVHS had to complete for the green ribbon was fix the cafeteria system. New trash cans have to be put in place so that food waste is separate from regular trash.

“We need to get the cafeteria completely composting, so when you buy lunch you have separate trash cans to throw away your trash,” said Yager.

The green ribbon saves the school money and makes the school a cleaner place.

“I would love the school to have less trash,” said sophomore LeeAnn Shaffer. “I hope this generation sees the school becoming greener.”