Recycling at Elms
Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover are actions that we promote and live at Elms. Recycling became more fully integrated into all of the programs taught at Elms when SMCPS added recycling pickups by Waste Management in 2009. In 2011, we launched a recycling lesson with 7th graders, encouraging them to take back this information to their homes and schools and to make recycling part of their everyday life.
Sotterley Plantation, the non-profit site where we teach our 2nd and 5th grade programs, does not recycle due to the expense of contracting pickup. Our 5th grade environmental education teachers teach the students to recycle anyway. One of the teachers, who rides a motorcycle, makes a point to drive a van to work once every two weeks to personally carry recyclables to the community recycling collection and transfer station.
In our permission form, we encourage students to pack waste-free lunches in reusable containers. Students recover food and other organic waste by composting for the native plant nursery, and feeding food scraps to animals used in lessons: meat for crabs, and vegetables for turtles. We reclaim prepackaged food that students dispose of for consumption by the occasional student that forgets to pack a lunch.
All of the lesson materials that we print at Elms are printed on the back of documents which have already been printed on one side, but are no longer needed. In addition to using previously-used paper that we have generated in the past, SMCPS content area specialists in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development save their unneeded documents for us to use.
Throughout most if its history, the Elms has operated with a minimal materials budget. The habits once generated by necessity are continued because they are good practice.
Sotterley Plantation, the non-profit site where we teach our 2nd and 5th grade programs, does not recycle due to the expense of contracting pickup. Our 5th grade environmental education teachers teach the students to recycle anyway. One of the teachers, who rides a motorcycle, makes a point to drive a van to work once every two weeks to personally carry recyclables to the community recycling collection and transfer station.
In our permission form, we encourage students to pack waste-free lunches in reusable containers. Students recover food and other organic waste by composting for the native plant nursery, and feeding food scraps to animals used in lessons: meat for crabs, and vegetables for turtles. We reclaim prepackaged food that students dispose of for consumption by the occasional student that forgets to pack a lunch.
All of the lesson materials that we print at Elms are printed on the back of documents which have already been printed on one side, but are no longer needed. In addition to using previously-used paper that we have generated in the past, SMCPS content area specialists in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development save their unneeded documents for us to use.
Throughout most if its history, the Elms has operated with a minimal materials budget. The habits once generated by necessity are continued because they are good practice.
To learn more about our actions, see Waste Reduction