It was 10:37AM on a typical Thursday and I was sitting in Desktop Publishing, stapling together the school newspaper. It wasn’t long before someone realized there was a huge misprint on the front page. Mrs. Mendel, the instructor of this class and “editor in chief” of the newspaper looked it over and declared, “It must be reprinted.” Even though printing of the first copy was half done, all of those copies would be thrown out.
“Can’t we just send it out anyways?” I asked urgently. “We can’t throw out boxes of paper!”
“We really need a recycling program here,” she said sympathetically, but then gave instructions to start reprinting.
“Maryjane Schiltz, please report to the office,” came a voice from the loudspeaker. Hoping I can finally talk to Mr. Hoster about my proposal for recycling, I made my way down to the office and sat in one of the ancient chairs. Mrs. Siedlitz, the secretary, sneaked in from the depths of the office. As usual, she is wearing socks with sandals and a men’s Hawaiian print shirt.
“Mr. Hoster would like to see you, Maryjane,” Mrs. Siedlitz drawled. Mrs. Siedlitz and I have never been close, possibly because of the caustic, passive-aggressive comments she often makes to me.
“Come on in, Maryjane,” said Mr. Hoster from his office. I did and quickly took a seat across from him. While he was pretending to be busy, writing something, I took a look around the office. Nothing too interesting, just books and boxes that appeared to be storage. I was jokingly surprised that he had not graduated from an online college. Mr. Hoster is a large serious man, who was very unpopular with the student population at Newark High School. This was in large part due to his severe enforcement of the dress code, his prison-like policies on lunch hour, and his general harsh demeanor around students. Despite my dislike for most of his rules, I’m not afraid of Mr. Hoster. However at the same time, I never willingly choose to be around him. “I received your letter.” He said, “Please explain your proposal to me.“
“Well Sir, I really think it is important that our school offers a paper recycling program. Every day we throw out tons of paper, that could easily be recycled. When the woman from Al Gore’s office came in and talked about global warming and what we can do about it, I realized that people in this school care about the environment. It would cost less than 500 dollars a year to get a small dumpster for paper products, and since that is the majority of our waste, I thought we could eventually get rid of one of our garbage dumpsters.”
“Well assuming we can get this added into the school’s budget, who would be responsible to emptying the recycle bins? The custodians should not have to do extra work,” Mr. Hoster informed me. I explained to him several ways this could be resolved and that this was the least of our worries. I also told him that it was shameful that our school could not do its part in recycling. He agreed with me, and but then went into a monologue about why he couldn’t help. I nodded my head and simultaneously zone out, disappointed. I promised that I would work on the details and left his office, passing by Mrs. Siedlitz who was smirking.
From there I went to American Government and sat down next to my friend Amanda. Amanda laughs and asks where I have been.
“With Doug,” I said, which is what everyone called Mr. Hoster behind his back. Our teacher, Mr. “Coach” Skelton had just brought up the topic of global warming, but he seemed to be more confused than anyone. It seemed that since the Al Gore lady had come to the school, all anyone could talk about was the environment. Besides PE, Coach Skelton was delegated to teach this class and Psychology. Although he is an amusing and kind man, he does a dismal job. He was babbling, sitting on a desk in the middle of the room, meanwhile I was correcting him in my head. The rest of the class were also offering their opinions. Amanda and I got sidetracked and start talking about our senior projects. I told her about the most recent drama with Mr. Hoster. Amanda was also disgusted that our school was so “behind the times.” She shared my belief that recycling was one of the easiest ways to make the environment better. After complaining about it for a while, I suggested we draw up a petition. Our petition politely demanded that our administration make room in the budget for paper recycling, because it was something almost all of the students supported. We asked Coach for permission to leave the classroom and get signatures. He didn’t mind because Bourne Identity was on and most of my classmates are just checking their email or sleeping.
Amanda and I went around the classrooms and got signatures from almost all of the students, our school had less than 200 students so that was easier than it sounds. At the end of the day, I was excited to go back into the office to present Mr. Hoster with the petition. As he looked it over he seemed very impressed.
“I will definitely show this to the school board,” he said.
Despite his promise, I never saw one piece of paper recycled before I graduated, but the school was forced to realize that the issue was much deeper than who would take out the trash. I feel that schools have an important role in setting a good example for younger generations. If a school has no policies about their effect on the environment, then the lessons students learn in their science classes have no validity. I feel that recycling is one of the best things schools can teach students about preserving our environment.
