wide-eyed

This expose on electronics recycling aired on 60 Minutes yesterday. I have been asking questions about NYC public schools electronic recycling and people haven’t liked it.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Is the New York City school recycling bin half empty or half full?

Councilmember’s Bill DeBlasio’s office introduced a bill calling for recycling in NYC schools (purposefully redundant since it’s unpracticed city law) and legislation requiring the Department of Education provide schools with recycling bins in June 2008. Teachers from around NYC brought over 200 students to City Hall in support of the hearing around the bill and legislation. Education Tomorrow’s Micki Josi and her students spoke out at the rally. A sixth grade student explained how he’s been taking his school’s paper recycling home because he couldn’t stomach it being trashed.

During the hearing, council members drilled the Departments of Sanitation and Education about the lack of recycling in schools. Jeff Shears, Chief of Staff for the DOE’s Office of Finance and Administration, was told at one point that if he were working for council member and Education Chair Robert Jackson, he’d be fired. He couldn’t answer a simple question: who is responsible for recycling in schools?

According to the Chancellor’s Regulations on Waste Management, it’s the principal. Yet, the vast majority principals haven’t prioritized it enough to even initiate programs and some have discouraged teachers who have tried.

As the bill and legislation gestate before a vote, the DOS and DOE have been given time to demonstrate their commitment, which they’re doing. Not like a valiant boyfriend professing his undying love, but more like one that’s tripped up so many times he’s trying to get some footing with a sound effort or two.

During the hearing, Shears was asked to produce names of the 372 recycling coordinators he purported having. Now he should be able to produce one for each of NYC’s more than 2,000 public schools.

For the first time ever, principals were required to submit the name of their school’s recycling coordinator by September 17, 2008. The position is unpaid and therefore didn’t require posting. Principals handpicked coordinators and staff may not know who was chosen, or that this new required position even exists.

There’s new energy around recycling in some schools, but coordinators are wringing their hands because starting a recycling program in a school that’s never successfully recycled is no small task. And the DOE is providing no training, nor are they training custodians who have been frequently at odds with recycling programs. Tackling the job as a volunteer isn’t always appealing—in one school, no one would take the job so the principal submitted her name. How effective and sustainable will this approach be?

Appointed recycling coordinators were required to create a recycling plan or sign a pre-fabricated one and submit a confirmation of having put it “on file” at school by October 1, 2008. The DOE acted swiftly with early-in-the-year deadlines, but how useful will thrown-together or stock plans be? Don’t effective plans come out of planning and environmental or recycling committee meetings with school-wide input?

The names of school recycling coordinators and their plans aren’t made public, so what will the next step for accountability be? Are these laudable first steps toward realizing effective recycling programs in all schools, or is it a way for the DOE to say they’ve done their part now it’s up to schools to do the rest? Like procuring bins. Right now, the DOE won’t provide bins, saying trash cans should be labeled as recycling bins—a naïve response that assumes there are extra trash bins, and that while our lessons must be consistently clear and explicit, our new recycling campaign needn’t be.

Over the summer, Educating Tomorrow spoke with the DOE about the importance of forming an advisory board to be part of the Chancellor’s Regulations on Waste Management revision process. This would bring all key players, such as the DOS and DOE, and the teacher’s, principal’s, custodial engineer’s and cleaner’s unions together to establish interagency best management practices. Yet one day in September, the new regulations were up and school recycling coordinators weren’t even notified. Again, a missed opportunity for communication, collaboration and success.

We also noticed the DOE now has a page up about recycling, albeit spelled wrong. We’re not too concerned by the missing “c”, but we are concerned coordinators may not know it’s there and don’t know who to turn to for help. Apparently, the more visible DOS Golden Apple Awards has received so many phone calls from new coordinators they’ve had to hire additional help.

The DOE has hired additional help to work on recycling, although we’re uncertain how they were hired or repositioned, what the new employee structure is (who’s responsible for what), and how long-term their position is. For example, one title is Special Assistant to the Integrated Service Center.

There are changes being made. We could just say the trash bin is completely full—half with paper and half with non-recyclable trash. Many of us don’t have recycling bins, and if we did, they’d be full of paper, some misplaced trash, and the air of good doing.

We had great turnout at the press conference and hearing on recycling in NYC schools yesterday. Students, teachers and parents from MS 447, PS 19, Eleanor Roosevelt High School and Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, Brooklyn New School and PS/IS 298 attended, many of them wearing “Be cool. Recycle at school!” t-shirts. The event was covered by NY1, Elected Leaders Urge City Schools to Recycle, Elected Leaders Urge City Schools to Recycle, and Metro Paper (see below).

Much of Mr. Shear’s, Chief of Staff for the Dept. of Education’s Office of Finance and Administration, testimony does not reflect the experience of teachers inside schools. We are very disturbed by the Department of Education’s lack of understanding and attention to this important issue. Our Committee is going to get a copy of the hearing and will be responding to Mr. Shear’s testimony.

Please contact local media so we can continue to bring attention to the bill and legislation and ensure they are passed.

Also, be sure to sign our petition. As soon as we get a substantial number of signatures, we’ll present it to NYC councilmembers.

School Recycling Scores Low Grade - Metro Paper

CITY HALL. The city’s 1,400- plus public schools generate roughly 50,000 tons of garbage annually, but only 10 percent of it is recycled, according to City Council man Bill de Blasio— despite a 1989 local law requiring the recycling of 25 percent of the city’s average daily waste stream.

“We see recycling happen sometimes,” De Blasio said. “It happens when there are teachers, parents and custodians willing to go out of their way.” He said eco-conscious teachers have to rely on grants or donations for recycling bins.

He introduced a bill yesterday to require the De partment of Sanitation supply every public and private school with a sufficient number of bins and storage containers for recyclables, plus signs to encourage participation and weekly pickups.

The bill was “not necessary,” DSNY’s Robert Lange said at a Council hearing yesterday. His department already provides such services and has been working with schools for 19 years on implementing recycling, such as by giving schools decals to label any receptacle for  recycling, he said. “Whether a school successfully recycles is ultimately the responsibility of the school community.”

Who holds schools accountable? That would be a school’s “recycling coordinator,” who develops an annual school recycling plan, coordinates with the principal and custodian and reports whether the school is meeting its targets, said Jeffrey  Shear, of the Department of Education.

Only 372 schools have such a position.  “The level of recycling is undisputedly higher at these schools,” Shear said,  adding that this summer, the DOE plans to do outreach to ensure schools have a designated recycling coordinator. “We have more work to do,” Shear said.

AMY ZIMMER, amy.zimmer@metro.us

Today I testified at the hearing on recycling in NYC public schools. Here’s my testimony:

Hello. My name is Coquille Houshour. Thank you for inviting me to share my school recycling experience and my enthusiasm for creating successful recycling programs in all New York City Schools. I hope by sharing the process my students and I went through to start and run our program will be useful in understanding some of the obstacles encountered in creating and maintaining recycling programs in New York City schools. I am excited this hearing is taking place and optimistic about the positive changes it can bring.

I am about to complete my fifth year of teaching at Public School 19, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. After earning a degree in Environmental Studies and pursuing a career in the environment and human rights, I became a teacher through the New York City Teaching Fellows program.

When I entered my classroom for the first time, I was pleased to find a recycling bin - until I realized it had only been used for trash. I was amazed to learn there was no recycling in my school at all, not in the classrooms or the cafeteria. Through my Teaching Fellows network, I discovered this was commonplace in schools throughout the City.

I found this deeply disturbing. I grew up in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, which supply paper and wood to the entire country. My hometown, Roseburg Oregon, is the timber capital of the nation and home to the largest privately owned lumber company in the world. I know all too well the impacts over-harvesting can have on the quality of water, air and life.Understanding the environmental implications of one’s actions can be difficult. In a city environment, especially one as large as NYC, we can be especially removed from our environmental impact. As an educator, I feel an obligation to teach my students about their connection to the environment we all depend upon.

In this spirit, I taught a unit on forest ecology my second year at PS 19. When my students learned recycling saves trees, they asked me why we weren’t recycling at school. I didn’t have an answer. I told them we were supposed to be recycling and I don’t know why we’re not. So we decided to start a recycling program.

My students and I realized we couldn’t just put bins in classrooms and expect students and teachers to know what to do – or why it mattered. We had to change the culture of our school. We knew we needed to educate everyone about why and how to recycle. So, I contacted the Department of Sanitation for help, assuming there would be someone to help coordinate assemblies and speakers. I found out there was no one assigned to do this, but was provided free materials. Despite numerous attempts, I wasn’t able to find any support available through the Department of Education.

I was lucky to have a supportive Head Custodian who agreed to purchase the basic materials needed for our program with the understanding the students and I would do the rest. I recruited Lead Recycling classes in every grade and Lead Recyclers, who were responsible for educating everyone on their floor. They also perform daily pickups, tracking them and issuing recycling awards and summons for non-compliance. The students learned about a lot more than just how to recycle.

This model proved to be powerful and engaging. In fact, my student recyclers won the prestigious 2006 Golden Apple Super Recyclers Award, as well as grants from the Captain Planet Foundation, New York State Association for Reduction, Reuse and Recycling, and Target. We were so proud! We thought we had made a super change to our school environment and were a huge success.

Then reality set in. We’ve had to tackle an ongoing battle with collection. I had made numerous phone calls to the Department of Sanitation to find out what our collection schedule was. When I discovered collection was curbside and only some days of the week, I tried to get the cleaners to take what students had collected outside on those days. But, they often refused and I had to do it myself. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a place to store our materials on non-collection days. When students missed a collection, the cleaners would throw all the paper recycling in the trash.

I finally made a connection with our Garage’s foreman and he said he’d do us a favor and mechanize our paper recycling. So, we dedicated two out of five dumpsters to paper recycling and we filled them every week. However, from what I gather a recycling truck is not picking it up, which means a garbage truck is. We also collect all of our milk cartons, glass, metal and plastic. But the cleaners are throwing it away. As a result, thousands of containers in recycling bags are being needlessly sent to the landfill every week.

Students see their recycling going into garbage dumpsters and they constantly ask me about it. What should I tell them?
And I think I should mention I have not been paid for any of the time I have put into our recycling program, which is the case of many teachers. Is it too much to ask this of our teachers and is it sustainable?

Recycling programs have the potential to be incredibly successful, but won’t until these obstacles are addressed and there is a comprehensive system that integrates all the necessary parties. Parents and teachers across New York City tell me they want to start programs, but need more support.

Amid mounting frustration, my colleague, Micki Josi, and I started a group called the New York City School Recycling Action Committee to build such support. We quickly generated interest from students, teachers and parents who have recycling programs or want to start them. There is a lot of energy for recycling our City right now and therefore an incredible opportunity to build momentum.

Our Committee identified our primary collective concerns, which we hope will be useful:

• The DOE Chancellor’s Regulations were last updated in 1994. The Regulations are very ambitious, but are not being implemented.
• Positions within the DOE should be created to assist schools in starting and maintaining programs and perform spot checks to assure compliance.
• Positions focusing on school recycling are needed in the Council on the Environment. Educated and motivated students ensure their families recycle.
• More programs and materials such as books, in-class programs, assemblies and speakers need to be made available to educate students and staff.
• The DOE needs to issue a directive indicating which budget the expenses for recycling materials should come from. Teachers should not have to struggle with writing grants for basic supplies.
• A waste management study needs to be conducted to have an accurate cost/income analysis of recycling in our schools. Paper recycling generates income, which could offset program costs. Less material sent to the landfills can reduce landfill expenses.
• Relationships and responsibilities for recycling need to be established with school custodians and cleaners. Cleaners say they don’t have time in their schedules to collect materials. This needs to be addressed and then custodial staff needs to be held accountable.
• A mechanized collection system needs to be implemented because current collection schedules are problematic and recycling cannot be stored inside schools because it’s a health and safety hazard.
• We want school recycling to be an integral part of the Department of Sanitation’s 20-year Solid Waste Management Plan our PlaNYC 2030.
• If we were to recycle the paper from New York City schools just next year, we could save around 400,000 trees. This makes one think differently about our City’s MillionTreesNYC plan. By the time our one million trees are planted, our schools could save four million.

Paolo Freire said, “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which we deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”

We don’t always do what’s best for our children, but we have an opportunity to do so with comprehensive school recycling programs. My students have shown an admirable dedication to recycling. In fact, they are crazy about it. It helps them make a measurable difference in a world where resources are over-burdened. Let’s help New York City’s children discover how their actions, and ours, can, indeed, make a difference. Let’s be cool. Let’s recycle at school!

Calling All NYC School Recycling Supporters!

City Hall wants to hear from us! And WE NEED YOUR HELP!

A Joint Committee hearing with the Dept. of Sanitation and the Dept. of Education on SCHOOL RECYCLING is set for TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1 PM. at City Hall.

Councilmember Bill De Blasio will be holding a pre-hearing press conference on the steps of CITY HALL at 12:15 PM. He’ll announce a bill calling for school recycling programs in all NYC schools. Plus, he’ll introduce legislation to bring back dumpster recycling collection (exactly what we’ve been asking for)!

Join us in showing the NYC Council how much we care!

Bring your teachers, students, parents and signs! Yes, it’s a school day, but a wonderful opportunity to learn about our City’s decision-making process. Councilmembers McMahon, Jackson & others, NRDC, the Custodian and Cleaner’s Unions will be there too!

We’ll have “Be cool. Recycle at school!” t-shirts if you want to order some—they’re only $5 (less if you order for your entire class)!

After the rally, the hearing takes place from 1-4 PM. The public is invited to attend.

This is critical moment: be there! And forward this far and wide!

The Story of Stuff is getting a lot of attention around the U.S.’s favorite shop ’til you drop season. Here’s a teaser, but you can watch the whole thing at The Story of Stuff.

Our Our Synthetic Sea is about 10 minutes and seriously disturbing. If we cut open our stomachs, shouldn’t we find a sea of synthetics?

Check out Chris Jordan on Comedy Central and Pop!Casts! He photographs the scale of consumption patterns by photographing small quantities of things and then making digital composites that add up the smaller photographs into actual quantities of the things we consume.

Thanks to the City Council’s support for Project Chess, the awesome non-profit, Chess-in-the-Schools, is training hundreds of New York City public school teachers (elementary, middle and high school) to implement chess programs in their schools in all five boroughs with their new Teacher Training Institutes.
Sign-up for one of their free two-session weekend workshop before they fill up. You’ll learn all the right moves, plus you’ll receive free chess materials to get your students started. (They’ll even train all you novices who lose before even sitting down.) Additional workshops will be scheduled throughout the school year according to demand, so if you don’t get a spot, you haven’t lost yet. And if you really want to be a knight in shining armor, you could request an in-school workshop if enough teachers in your school are interested.

Before deciding whether or not it’s worth giving up two precious weekend days, remember: successful chess programs help students master skills needed for academic success (and maybe even increase scores on standardized tests).

Just go for it! The sooner you sign up, the sooner you can get your students to one of Chess-in-the-School’s amazing chess tournaments. All you have to do is fill out their form and fax it to them. If you have any questions, you can shoot Eric Hutchins an email at tti@chessintheschools.org, or give him a call at 212-643-0225.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia has more than 100 interactive exhibits and an estimated 17 hours of interpretive content. Their website has a generous amount of educational resources, including a visitor’s guide and resources on teaching current events. If you can, take your class there! Need-based scholarships are available and applications can be completed online. I’ve heard they are even covering the costs of hiring buses from NYC, at least through this year.