CVHS is going green

Students at CVHS are encouraging more recycling on campus, with the intention of lowering our waste school-wide. The Leadership class, along with Smart Energy Club, has been promoting recycling throughout the CVHS campus.

Last year, Leadership students did a lot of new and “green” activities to gain the Green Ribbon certificate at our school. They went around to each classroom to make sure that every teacher had a green bin for recycling. This year they are still working on the goal of becoming a certified green school.

“In Smart Energy we do a lot of different events that encourage recycling at CVHS,” said junior Jaime Lu. Smart Energy has done events like electronic recycling days and a waste audit at CVHS.

Most Castro Valley schools are also trying to gain their Green Ribbon certificate. CVHS, the biggest school in Castro Valley, has a harder time achieving this award because of the sheer number of students. With nearly 3,000 students attending CVHS, it makes a lot of waste, and a lot of people that have to be convinced to recycle.

This year they are taking it up a notch. Leadership has decided to start making public service podcasts that promote recycling. Also, at four places in the courtyard, trash and recycling will be stationed, with signs depicting what can be put in and what cannot, and someone from administration will watch that people are throwing garbage away.

Many classrooms were given two little bins for waste from students. There is a small black one for trash, and a blue one, two times the size, for recycling. In the near future, Leadership students hope that the cans will accumulate the total waste for each week, meaning more is recycled than thrown away.

Also, on the outdoor lunch benches they have placed signs that say “#recycle + clear tables = cvhs pride” to make people think twice before throwing things away, and to remember to even just pick up their trash from the table.

“It’s a pet peeve of mine, students who leave their trash out,” said Leadership teacher Nick Whitaker. Students don’t think about the harm they are causing for seagulls and themselves later, like when the seagulls come for their food trash while scattering poop across the courtyard.

One teacher, Deborah Yager, has made an incredibly green classroom. This science teacher has provided many recycling bins, a worm bin, a broken glass box, a plastics collection, and a compost collection in her classroom.

“Hopefully, we will one day compost as a school along with recycling,” said Yager.