Many students at West Potomac are not privy to one of its most withheld secrets – recycling. The school does not have a long standing history of recycling and the effort to better the community’s environmental status has only just recently kicked off. Despite this, many people at West Potomac choose not to recycle.

“We have the recycling bins that say recycling, but it’s not happening,” said junior Tara Boyle. “No one takes it seriously enough.”

Recycling is a process that helps the environment by converting waste materials into reusable materials. This saves energy and provides many top industries with the raw materials they need to manufacture the products we use in our everyday lives. In an effort to implement these measures at the West Potomac community, senior Ward Anderson dedicated his time to get more students to recycle.

“I noticed my freshman year that not many people recycled paper and when I found out last year that our school did not recycle paper, I attempted to start a recycling initiative,” Anderson said. “I made visual posters with things that could be recycled and [with the help of the janitors] put recycling bins in the cafeteria – but not many people recycled.”

Though this initiative kicked off last year, students have yet to take notice and start recycling.

“I think people just don’t bother recycling because there’s always a trash can. They treat recycling bins like trash bins even though they’re not the same,” said senior Sarah Yankson. “The only time I think anyone even remembers recycling is Earth Day and that only comes around once a year so it doesn’t make too much of a difference,” she explained.

The effort to increase recycling is a long and steady process that depends on the communities willingness to participate. Some students believe that despite the slow start, recycling has the potential to completely change the West Potomac community.
“We would be so much better off if we recycled. Our school would be cleaner and our environment would be better off in general,” said Yankson. “The first step is always the hardest so now we just have to keep encouraging students to recycle to make a difference at our school.”