Middle School recycling program saves trees!

In just a few short weeks, the new Voorheesville Middle School recycling program is already saving trees.

Joe Iannotti, a middle school science teacher who is helping students with the recycling initiative, said the students and teachers have responded well to the new initiative.

Each classroom has a blue recycling basket in it, where certain items can be recycled. (See list of recyclable items below.)

Once or twice a week, eighth-grade students go through the middle school to collect the material from the bins for recycling.

Ianotti said that in general, every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees. While it’s still too early too tell how much the middle school has recycled, he said the decline in the amount of waste that is in the regular garbage cans at the end of the day is noticeable.

The Middle School Student Council paid for the cost of the recycling bins.

The company that recycles the paper, TA Predel & Co., makes paper, cardboard and other paper products out of recycled materials.

Products that can be recycled include:

Acceptable Office Mix
White paper
Stationery
Bond paper
Envelopes
Windowed envelopes
Copy paper
File stock
NCR forms
Manila folders
Colored paper

Acceptable low-grade materials

Newspaper
Phone books
Construction paper
Junk Mail
Magazines

Products that cannot be recycled include:

Tissues
Paper towels
Paper plates
Paper cups
Wax paper
Carbon paper
Thin cardboard
Copy paper wrapper
Any non-paper items