Through a collaboration between schools and a recycling company, students are working to recycle thousands of juice and milk cartons.
Haywood Early College students are joining up with fifth graders at Junaluska Elementary and Haywood County Recycling to keep nearly 90,000 juice and milk cartons out of the county landfill each year.
“This project was fun and rewarding,” said Hailey Hartshorn, environmental science student and junior at Haywood Early College. “We all learned how to step up as science communication leaders to make a meaningful difference.”
“We were surprised at how many recyclable items are filling up our landfills,” said Haywood Community College biology instructor and club advisor Susan Roberts.
Using a students-teaching-students model to connect with the younger students at Junaluska, the Environmental Leadership Club at Haywood Early College is taking the opportunity to teach the fifth graders about the importance of recycling.
“Our students were so excited to learn from HCC students,” said Joy Sollie, counselor at Junaluska.
The new recycling program at Junaluska will look to stop the 90,000 milk and juice cartons from going to the trash by using new recycling containers provided by the county. This model will then work its way into other surrounding schools.