Bromfield is going greener, thanks to the efforts of a few dedicated teachers and middle school students. Special education teacher Davida Bagatelle and seventh-grade science teacher Wyatt Holt have been working to make recycling a more integral part of middle schoolers’ daily lives, and the recycling initiative that they have spearheaded in the middle school is showing results.
Bagatelle explains that the recycling program came about when she and Holt put their heads together to figure out a way to make recycling work on campus. In previous years, it had not proven to be cost-effective to have custodians deal with the recycling needs of the school. Furthermore, Bagatelle said, with a program run solely by adults, the students were not as involved, and consequently not as committed to using the recycling containers appropriately. “The kids were throwing bottles and cans in the trash and in the open bins,” she explains. “We had to get them more active in recycling.”
A year ago, Bagatelle and Holt received a grant from the Parent Teacher Association to purchase recycling bins designed to restrict the materials that can be placed in them—bins with round holes for cans, bins with lids for paper—and placed them around the middle school, along with a large recycling container for paper that was placed outside of the school. When the classroom bins became full, middle schoolers in the advisory classes sorted out the bottles and cans, and students emptied the paper bins during their homeroom periods. Bagatelle also notes the support that the initiative has received from DPW Director Rich Nota, who arranged to have the bottles and cans picked up and taken to the transfer station once they were bagged and sorted.
The recycling program has slowly but surely gained momentum throughout Bromfield. Physical education teachers have placed bottle containers near the gym, mindful of the amount of water in bottles that is consumed by students during gym classes and team practices. The main office is now using a recycling bin, as there are a few high school teachers who have requested bins for their classrooms.
At a recent meeting of the Board of Selectmen, Bagatelle shared some of her team’s successes. Last year, the school recycled about five tons of paper, saved 10 cubic yards of landfill space, and earned $30. Not a huge amount, Bagatelle concedes, but enough to pay for the purchase of a few more recycling bins to help build the program. And at that same Board of Selectmen’s meeting, the selectmen committed to an additional $175 to buy additional recycling containers.
Most importantly, notes Bagatelle, the recycling initiative has given the middle school students ownership of the process, and a hands-on understanding of one way that they can help their community, and the planet.
