The accomplishment earlier this month places the school, one of more than 5,000 Canadian schools taking part in TerraCycle Canada’s Eliminating the Idea of Waste program, among the top 10 in the country. Eliminating the Idea of Waste is a program which focuses primarily on elementary schools challenging students to rethink what is and isn’t recyclable.
The program has students collect various non-blue bin items such as snack wrappers, drinking bags and spray bottle tops. Items are then sorted into various categories, called brigades, and diverted from landfill.
“One of the programs where they are really great for collecting for us is called the Air and Homecare Brigade,” said Vanessa Farquharson, a spokesperson for TerraCycle Canada. “That is something that actually involves a lot of effort when you are sending us materials.” Trigger heads from spray bottles are not recyclable, Farquharson said.
“The bottle itself is recyclable, you can put that in the blue bin, but almost nobody realizes that the trigger head is not — it has too many different-plastic components and a spring mechanism in there as well.”
The Air and Homecare Brigade also includes used plug-in air fresheners, soiled static sweeping cloths and soup container dispensing lids.
“They are just super dedicated and every time that we come out with a new program they are the first to kind of join in and get it going,” said Farquharson.
Not only have the students at St. Maurice been learning about ging the extra mile in recycling since partnering with TerraCycle back in 2011, the school has also been making money from its efforts.
“For every piece of waste that the school sends to us we give them either one or two TerraCycle points which equates to one or cents,”
Farquharson said. “Once they reach a certain amount of points, or dollars, they can choose to redeem that for a cheque to the school. So really for every piece of garbage we are getting from them they are getting one or two cents back.
“It really drives home the lesson that there is value in what most of us throw away.”
Principal Frank Termine said the money raised at St. Maurice has gone towards supporting environmental programming at the school, such as bringing in guest speakers and funding field trips, as well as purchasing new athletic equipment. And although the money has helped the Rexdale area school out, making money is not the point, said Termine.
“Recycling and doing what is right, and doing what’s good, for the environment is its own reward,” he said. “I don’t think you should necessarily be paid monetarily to do it.”
He said the real value of having the program in his school is that it promotes “recycling properly and reducing their waste,” fostering “good environmental stewards” for the future.
Termine praised the “really involved parent community” for implementing the program back in 2011, singling out Tanina Casarella as a key figure to the success.
“It is in no small part because of Tanina,” said Termine, who took over as principal three years ago. “She doesn’t have kids in the school any more but she still comes in to support us. We’re very lucky to have her.”
Not only does Casarella continue to function as the liaison between the school community and TerraCycle, she is also responsible for providing boxes to collect the non-blue bin items in each class room. Additionally, Casarella looks after sorting the collected items appropriately — a role Termine said the school is looking to phase Casraella out of.
“The kids help her but a lot of it is because of what she does,” he said. “Now our goal is to encourage students to take over the work that she is currently doing. We want to make it student led. If we can do that the students take ownership.”
But good isn’t good enough for Termine who hopes to see St. Maurice designated an Ontario Certified Ecoschool.
“We have to do a better job of recycling,” he said, despite what has already been achieved. “We are not at 100 per cent here, and certainly other schools are not at 100 per cent, and a lot of the things that students are using and bringing into the school aren’t recyclable in the blue bin.
Parents need to be more aware that these things are not recyclable and maybe not purchase them in the first place, but if they do then luckily we have a program like TerraCycle that recycles them.”