Once you finish reading this paper, you might find yourself walking out of the school with it in your hand, talking to your friends, and, without thinking, dropping it into the nearest recycling bin. A few hours later when the school is empty and the custodians are making their rounds, that same newspaper may be surrounded by empty milk cartons, apple cores, sandwich crusts and every other recyclable piece of paper in the building. Instead of being disposed how they should be, recyclables sit and rot with all the other garbage in the dumpsters. So we asked ourselves, “Why does the school keep these little green boxes of lies?”

For two years now, the school has had these recycling bins out, yet when no one is watching, it all ends up with the rest of the trash. A few years ago you may remember students coming into your classroom near the end of the day and emptying your recycling bin into a much larger, blue one. At this time, NK was still recycling the properly-disposed goods.

Unfortunately, most of those students that came to take care of the recycling were seniors, and once they graduated, no one took care of the job anymore. So, at the end of the day, all of the recyclables meet many of the non-recyclables in one garbage bag.

Dean of students Brian McDonald said “I don’t really know [about the recycling problem]. I know we used to [recycle],” he said. McDonald went on to say that “Mr. Avedisian and his Current Events class have been all over that.” McDonald also said that the current events class had been trying to bring recycling back to the school for quite some time. So, if there is a class asking for recycling to return, students investigating school recycling through their senior projects, and the overall fact that we already have all the bins required and ready, it is now up to the NK students to take the initiative to recycle.