Two years ago, a couple of City High students came to Mrs. Brenard, a 9th grade science teacher and basketball coach, asking to start a City High Recycling Club. The first year of recycling club was very successful as they managed to get a sponsor to donate a $600 grant to invest in green recycling bins for every classroom in City High. 

”We did a ton of stuff the first year, and luckily the next year the special ed department started helping picking up stuff because we had a lot of bins,” Brenard said. 

Bottles were crushed, papers were salvaged, but  since founders Naomie Maurice ‘19 and Lottie Gidal ‘19 have graduated from City High, recycling club is now looking for a leader. 

“I facilitate talking to admin, districts, and hosting the meetings in my room but I am just the sponsor and not the motor so someone else needs to be the motor and then I can steer them in the right direction,” Brenard said. “To run recycling club, all someone needs to decide when there’s going to be meetings and help recycle things.” 

The club wants to encourage any City High students, specifically those involved in the climate strike, as they may have a passion for the environment, to re-ignite recycling club. Meetings would typically take place twice a month in room 1414 with Ms. Bernard, the special ed department staff, and the sponsor for the club. The meetings will cover better ways for city high to facilitate recycling.  

 “The big thing last year was in the cafeteria, all the plastic got thrown away.”  Brenard said. “So to run it, somebody would need to say this is what we want to do next and work towards coming up with solutions.”

Along with the cafeteria issue, last year, students weren’t recycling plastic and paper properly which is not only bad for the environment, the special ed department is then forced to sort through the bins if contents aren’t recycled properly. 

“If we could do it correctly and people didn’t throw their trash in the wrong place, this would help recycling club significantly because that is one of the biggest reasons for it to possibly stop.” Brenard said.