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Introduction: Explain the entire project.
We in the Greenwich Young
Scholars program are doing a project on recycling,
studying about paper recyclable goods in 5 counties’
schools around Greenwich, New York. This was done
by splitting the essay into questions and we all got
separate parts of it to complete. What are the
effects of recycling? What recycled paper products
typically used in the schools? What is the school
budget for paper goods in Greenwich? What recycling
plants are throughout New York State and the
counties near us? The first thing that we needed to
know is if many schools other than us recycle paper
goods.
Tim Norton, Grade 7,
Greenwich
Do
schools Around Greenwich Recycle Paper Goods?
Greenwich GCS has a recycling
program called Students to Oppose Pollution
(S.T.O.P.).We have boxes in every classroom from
grades 7-12 in which the students and teachers put
their used paper. Every Wednesday the science
teacher and students in grades 7-8 help her pick up
the paper from the classrooms, bring it to the
science room, and sort it. They take the paper and
separate it into different piles. Once the students
sort them they put it in a teacher’s car and she
brings it to a recycling center. After
participating in S.T.O.P. our local recycling
program at Greenwich Central School (GCS), I
expected most of the recycled paper products to be
lined paper and notebooks; however I found that the
recycled paper product range is wide and varying.
S.T.O.P had a big affect in our school, so we are
now looking at other schools to see whether or not
they recycle.
Upon
looking up schools that have a population close to
Greenwich in five counties, Washington, Saratoga,
Essex, Hamilton, and Warren, in the northeast region
of New York it was found that Cambridge, Corinth,
Galaway, Mechanicville, Stillwater, Ticonderoga,
Hadley-Luzerne, and Lake George were the only
schools with a similar population. (www.emsc.nysed.gov).
After reviewing a number of
school web sites, including Greenwich, and asking
teachers at schools in our area if they had paper
recycling programs in their schools there was little
to no information gathered. A 7th grade
Science teacher at Stillwater said that Stillwater
does not have a recycling program, but they use some
recycled brown paper towels and they have 100%
recycled toilet tissue paper. A surprising comment
from his was, “I have no information about a local
recycling plant. At one point, the Stillwater school
did recycle. When it did, the paper was taken to the
Port of Albany where it was shipped to a plant for
recycling.” Thankfully the process of recycling is
so simple now that a little effort can go a long
way.
Oren Cook, Home Schooled,
Greenwich
What
are the environmental effects of recycling paper?
In order to research the
effects of recycling I looked in books from the
Greenwich Central School Library and searched on the
web. Contrary to my expectations the books were not
useful, and the internet was. The internet had
precise, accurate, and up to date information and
the books have inaccurate, confusing, and outdated
information. Using this information I formed the
following analysis of the environmental effects of
recycling paper or, more importantly, of not
recycling paper.
Effects of
recycling paper
Recycling paper reduces
pollution, oil and water use, saves trees and
landfill space and uses much less energy than virgin
paper production. For every ton of paper recycled 17
trees, 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, three 380
gallons of oil and 4,000 kilowatts are saved (http://www.resourcefulschools.org/html/facts.html
et al).
While this may not seem like much, it has a
significant positive impact on the environment.
Recycled paper uses 55% less water, reduces water
pollution by 35%, and air pollution by nearly75%.
Recycling saves energy as well, reducing energy use
by 60-70% (http://www.sutta.com/environmental.html).
Recycling one ton of paper saves $990 per ton just
on oil and electricity (http://www.resourcefulschools.org/html/facts.html).
One ton of paper is the
equivalent of one small school recycling its paper
for a year. If nine separate small schools each
recycled one ton of paper each year, they would save
540 lbs of air pollution, 153 trees, 63,000 gallons
of water, 3,420 gallons of oil, 36,000 kilowatts of
electricity (for a combined savings on oil and
electricity of $8,910),and 29.7 cubic yards of
landfill space per year.
Effects of not recycling
paper
If we do not recycle, the
waste of our resources will continue, possibly
driving up the costs of oil, definitely creating
tons of easily preventable air and water pollution,
and using thousands of kilowatts of unnecessary
electricity.
What can you do?
With 95% of our native forests
in the U.S., gone a change is in order (http://www.recycleworks.org/paper/paper_wbr.html).
Recycling paper is only part of the effort needed to
reduce the strain on environmental resources.
Consumers must also purchase goods created from
recycled materials in order to complete the circle.
If consumers create a market for recycled goods,
then recycling itself will become more cost
effective, and the products will become cheaper.
Schools alone can create their own markets for
recycled paper enabling them to save money and be
environmentally friendly at the same time.
Andrew Horning, Grade 8,
Greenwich
What
Are The Recycled Products?
While dividing my research
section into several smaller sections, mainly
dealing with the different recycled paper products
used in schools. Initial research revealed some of
the types of products made from recycled paper, I
found Available Recycled Paper Products,
which contained a list of recyclable paper products.
Computer paper, binders, dividers, folders, lined
paper, books, journals, food service containers,
napkins, and tissues were included. Sadly all of
these products are found in schools and are often
not recycled.
As research continued I found
a pie chart at Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
that showed how much of each material makes up the
MSW. I was shocked to find that paper made up the
largest portion by far, almost 35.5%, which that
means that if we just started recycling all paper we
would eliminate 35.5% of our MSW. That would save a
priceless amount of our land from becoming mounds of
garbage. It would provide room for more housing,
sports fields, public gardens, and parks. Seeing
this, it would be almost foolish to ignore it when
the solution is so simple.
Also found was Paper
Recycling where I took notes on sanitary issues
such as de-inking. There are 3 major de-inking
processes the processes are as follows: (1) Washing
as paper is pulped, chemicals can be added which
separate the ink from the paper and allow it to be
washed away. (2) Flotation air is passed through
pulp, producing foam which the ink will stick to and
rise to the surface. (3) Centrifugal Cleaning ink
particles and fibers (paper) are different masses so
when put in centrifugal motion they will separate.
(*note: process (3) was from the email reply from
eric.infante@sca.com.)
Biodegradable chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide
can be used, which breaks down into water and oxygen
on disposal. This would prevent harmful chemicals
from leaking into the environment.
I collected this information
while awaiting a response to the email that had been
sent to
eric.infante@sca.com. Eric
Infante is the computer specialist at SCA, a paper
mill/paper processor that our class at Greenwich
Central School visited on a field trip. He
introduced us to his fellow employees Barb Hemken
and Steve Duell, the recycling experts at SCA. They
were able to confirm the recycled paper products and
told us that the price of recycled paper compared to
virgin paper (fresh, new paper) depended more on the
supplier than on “rule of thumb”. Mr. Duell also
shared some of his knowledge about the recycling
process and de-inking. He said that some of the
processes are actually similar to a clothes washing
process. Mr. Duell also let us know that while the
water levels used in both virgin and recycled paper
are very high, one is not necessarily more than the
other. However, a lot of the water used in both
processes is cleaned and reused.
After researching recycling
for several weeks our class has found that not only
is it environmentally beneficial, but will also save
us huge quantities of oil and electricity, oil use
being under much controversy because of its extreme
prices. The recycled paper is clean and sanitary,
the process (depending on the plant and money put
into it) is environmentally safe, and in the overall
scope of things, could potentially reduce our oil
problems drastically, and save a large portion of
electricity. Helping recycle can and will make our
world a healthier and better place.
Mel Steinberg, Grade 7,
Greenwich
Does GCS Reduce,
Reuse, & Recycle?
My initial research question
was this: Does Greenwich Central School District (G.C.S.),
specifically the Junior-Senior High, use recycled
paper products, and if not, would it be
cost-effective to do so? According to The
Resourceful Schools Project, recycling saves
trees, landfill space, and massive amounts of oil
and electricity. Not only would money be saved, but
what about the environment? We wanted to find the
answers to these questions because G.C.S. currently
has a recycling program called S.T.O.P., Students To
Oppose Pollution. If our school is recycling paper,
we want to know if we are completing the recycling
flow by also purchasing recycled paper.
The answers to these questions
were searched for at the G.C.S. website,
www.greewichcsd.org, I
couldn’t find them so I wrote an email to Beth Ann
Mosher of the Greenwich Central School Business
Office. We asked her a few questions about the
school’s 2005-2006 budget and the paper products the
school purchases. Beth Ann Mosher informed us that
the Greenwich schools purchase their plain copy
paper from Ricoh Corp. They buy 650 cases of
“virgin, not made from recycled product” plain copy
paper, and about 225 of these cases are used by the
Junior-Senior High. The plain white copy paper costs
about $20.13 per case, thus the high school spends
about $4,500 on their copy paper. Mrs. Mosher
informed us that “…various amounts of pre 3-hole
punched paper and colored paper are also used,” and
it is concluded from this that this paper is not
from recycled products either.
These were some of the
questions that I had asked Mrs. Mosher: “…how much
of the Greenwich Central Junior-Senior High School
budget is spent on paper products such as computer
paper, lined paper, envelopes, and maintenance paper
products in the current of past school year?” This
question was not directly answered, but given the
cost and amount of plain white paper used, G.C.S.
Junior-Senior High spends about $4,500. But it is
not know how much of the budget is spent on lined
paper, colored paper, or any other paper products.
I next asked, “…of those paper
products, what percent are made from recycled
paper?”
This question was not directly
answered either, but it is concluded, to the best of
our knowledge, that little of G.C.S.’s paper
products, other than the paper towels made of 40%
recycled fiber, are made from recycled paper.
“From where are the school’s
paper products purchased, and do they (the
suppliers) offer recycled paper?”
www.ricoh-usa.com provided
no information on their paper products, let alone
recycled paper products(edited).
My original hypothesis was
that our school used about 25% recycled paper
products, but I was incorrect. To the best of my
knowledge, the Greenwich Central Junior-Senior High
uses little in the way of recycled paper products.
Ethan Oswald, Grade 8, Greenwich
Painstaking is the only way to
describe the experience that I went through trying
to find an answer to my question. I searched with
many different keyword searches and every time some
recycling plant in Oregon came up as either the
first or the second. Unfortunately the information
was unavailable. It has become quite apparent that
if there is the information available it has to be
more easily accessible to the people seeking
information.
Left with very limited
options, I decided to email the head of recycling in
Washington County, Mr. William Grimmke. Upon
receiving his response, I had my first valid source
of information on recycling plants in upstate New
York. Mr. Grimmke informed us that all of our
school’s recycled paper is shipped to Fort Edward
and that surprisingly virgin paper is 5% less
expensive than recycled paper, but in another
recycling plant it is 10%. According to the
statistics we have been given and with the
approximate average amount of paper used in
Greenwich Central School (GCS) being 1.4 thousand
pounds of paper buying virgin paper ($45 a case)
instead of recycled ($50 a case) GCS will save $150
dollars a year buying virgin paper.
However, if we consider that
we are loosing significant numbers of trees,
electricity, and gallons of oil, the cost of
non-recycled paper increases. Although companies
claim that recycled paper costs more than regular
paper that is not always true according to
Conservatree.com the prices of coated paper is the
same if not lower than the price of virgin paper.
Recycling is much more of a
problem now because people didn’t see it when we
needed it the most, so now it is not only or right
but our duty to preserve our land for generations to
come.
The irony of the situation is
that we are going through an oil crisis and yet we
are willingly throwing away our oil on things that
we don’t need like non-recycled paper. Without our
natural elements we will not only be suffering from
the environmentalist stand point but also
economically.
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