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Students Are All Revved Up About Recycling

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By MEGAN HUSSEY, Tribune correspondent

Published: December 30, 2007

SAN ANTONIO - Paper recycling has come to town, thanks to a group of students at St. Anthony School.

Earth Force, a group of about 40 students who study and promote environmental stewardship, secured a 7-by-15-foot recycling bin for the school and the community.

For a year, sixth-grader Emily Novak called the Southeast Paper Co. once a week asking for a container, which arrived in November.

"I saw so much paper being wasted around the school and not recycled," said Emily, 12. "If a student wrote a line of an essay and wasn't happy with it, they'd just crumple it up."

Now that the bin is in place, Emily said she notices more people recycling paper, at school and in the community.

"A lot of people are using it," she said. "There's not a lot of paper recycling sites in town, and people are happy."

The arrival of the bin also has inspired recycling education at St. Anthony School, 13-year-old Isabelle Ruiz said.

"The teachers are telling the kids, 'Don't throw paper away if you can use it for something else,'" the eighth-grader said. "They're telling kids to recycle."

The Earth Force students launched their own educational blitz before the recycling bin arrived.

"We put letters in the school newspaper so people would start saving paper, and in the church newsletter so they could also start recycling," said 11-year-old Caroline Storch.

The students practice what they preach. Every year, Earth Force provides recycling services at San Antonio's Rattlesnake Festival. Throughout the year, guest speakers come in to talk about recycling. Of course, they recycle at home.

"Ever since I was little, I was taught that if I saw a piece of paper on the floor, I should pick it up and throw it away," Emily said. "When it comes to recycling, I wanted to help out more than just around the house."

The paper recycling container is the second Earth Force has obtained. Five years ago, the club brought in a bin for aluminum, plastic and glass.

Recycling isn't the club's sole focus. Last school year, students planted a garden of Florida native plants at the school meant to attract native birds and animals. The students still maintain this garden. Earth Force members also have addressed the San Antonio City Commission on environmental issues.

The club's frequent guest speakers have included representatives of Keep Pasco Beautiful and Scott Willis of Suncoast Earth Force, which oversees Earth Force chapters at 54 schools in the Tampa Bay area.

"Earth Force represents the youth voice," Willis said. "We, as adults, are only their shepherds."

That's how the students see it, too.

"We want to show that kids care," Ruiz said.

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