FAYETTEVILLE — Christie Grigg, a junior at Haas Hall Academy, tries to practice what she preaches by bringing her lunch to school in packaging she can use over and over.
She is one of eight students who organized voluntarily to develop a recycling program as part of the school’s entry in a national contest, the Lexus Eco-Challenge.
The program encourages students to participate in “green lunches” by bringing their lunch in reusable plastic containers rather than plastic bags easily thrown away.
“I’m trying to quit bringing in trash,” Grigg, 17, said.
“If you can do it for a week, it could become routine,” said junior Caleb Jenkins, 16.
Besides trying to increase awareness about recycling and green lunches, the students are evaluating what gets thrown away every day, a so-called waste audit.
In the first five weeks, they have collected 88 pounds of trash that could have been recycled, most from students and teachers throwing stuff away from lunch, Jenkins said.
Haas Hall doesn’t have a cafeteria and students and teachers bring their lunches most days.
The students also said they have found unopened bottles of water and uneaten apples and other food in the garbage.
“Only 32 percent of recyclable (products) get recycled,” said Lisa Terry, a 14-year-old ninth-grader.
Junior Danna Gardner, 16, said she’s not convinced people are listening. Gardner believes students don’t like to recycle.
“They aren’t buying into it,” she said.
The students will compile the results of their audit and their campaign for “green” lunches into an entry for the Lexus Eco-Challenge Contest, sponsored by Scholastic Corp. Scholastic is a publisher and distributor of children’s books, educational technology and children’s media.
The students will develop an action plan and present that plan Jan. 19. The contest is divided into two parts: land and water and air and climate. The Haas Hall students will enter the air and climate contest.
A $10,000 prize goes to the winning team. That team moves on to another challenge, to be announced. The winning team of the final challenge receives $30,000.
The contest is intended to appeal to students to make an environmental difference in the environmental health of Earth.
The awareness campaign resumes after the winter holiday break.
The student team said the exercise has raised their awareness.
“I’m becoming more conscious of what I’m throwing away,” said sophomore Kimberly Tomlinson, 15.
WEB WATCH
Green Lunch
Students participating the recycling and green lunch initiative have set up a Web site to learn more about the joint program. See the students’ Web site at
www.HHASwat.comxa.com.