All recycling products at the school have been trashed in the past six months because students keep contaminating recycling bins with improper waste such as food

School has not recycled any non-cardboard waste for the past six months due to waste, such as food scraps, contaminating recycling bins on campus, said maintenance supervisor Paul Weir. 

“When the recycle bin is mixed with trash like food scraps, the whole bin becomes automatically unrecyclable,” Weir said. 

The school generates about 40,000 pounds of waste products per month, he said, and more than half can be recycled if not contaminated. 

The waste ends up in the Guadalupe Landfill in San Jose. 

Students’ habits are the determining factor of whether the school can revive its recycling program, Weir said. For instance, if students avoid putting things like food in the blue recycling bins, they will only contain recyclable items such as paper and be taken away for proper sorting.

According to Weir, there are 15 blue recycling bins set up around campus with posters instructing students about how and what to recycle: Recycle paper (newspapers, magazines and mixed paper — no napkins), cardboard (excluding lunch trays), glass bottles and jars (without liquid), rigid plastic products (plastic bottles without liquid) and metal containers (tin, aluminum and steel cans). 

On Nov. 23, The Falcon randomly selected a sample of six out of the 15 bins on campus. When reporters dug through and examined the contents, they discovered that all six bins were contaminated with non-recyclable materials. 

One bin, located in front of Room 602, contained one tray of grease, three batteries, one rock-hard pizza, two greasy plastic wraps and two plastic bottles containing liquid. In the second, located in front of the office, two juice bottles with unfinished liquid, one chocolate-tainted Starbucks cup, one greasy plate and one greasy tin foil were found. 

Other recycling bins were fouled by a greasy sandwich, unfinished Cheez-Its, chocolates and other food items and drinks.

To combat the problem, a school-wide campaign, Green School, is being planned by the School Site Council. This developed after junior class vice president Ishir Lakhani presented a draft of green initiatives devised by senior Green Team president Cici Xu to the council on Nov. 18.

“[Green initiatives] are something that we’ve been trying to push through for a long time,” said Lakhani. “We have to promote things like recycling around the classroom and around campus, while trying to minimize waste as well.”

To measure progress, the maintenance staff will weigh correctly sorted recyclable trash every week to keep record of the school’s recycling success.

“Guadalupe Landfill only has a limited space to store trash,” Weir said. “The Earth only has a limited capability to process methane gas pollution from landfill. What will Guadalupe Landfill do when they can handle and bury no more trash? We need to find a new landfill somewhere, but where is that space going to be?”