Making Something Out of Nothing

Jose Maria Claro

My school is situated beside the infamous Pasig River. Had the river been clean as it was decades ago, it would have been an idyllic place for an academic institution. Students could have enjoyed riding boats that cruise across the river. Fresh air coming from the pristine waters would have pervaded the neighborhood. Instead, we have students who have no choice but to brave the river and hope that no large boats will pass lest they get wet by murky waters. The estero gives off a mild albeit unpleasant odor that gets worse during rainy days.

One might think my students would have learned the lessons from the mistakes of their parents who have polluted the river to utter deterioration. Unfortunately, they still treat their environment rather shabbily. They continue to throw small pieces of litter in the river or on the streets. Sometimes, they even leave disposable things they have used on benches and tables without giving consideration to the next people who may want to use the area.

When an NGO decided to hold a Best Environmental Practice Contest, I immediately jumped on the idea and challenged my student officers to come up with an environmental practice for the school. During their brainstorming, the students thought about the school’s practices that could be considered harmful to the environment. They immediately identified two areas. One was the excessive use of plastic, which was evidenced by flimsy bags strewn all over the campus. The other one, which is the biggest ecological footprint of all schools is the limitless consumption of paper. From here, the students decided to initiate waste management projects as a way of helping the environment, but also, of making students aware of the simple things they could do to help Mother Nature.

Admittedly, the projects my students came up with weren’t exactly novel or innovative. They simply decided to adopt the practices of certain schools or companies that they have read about. Even so, the students thought that these would still be of significant benefit to the environment, especially if the behavior encouraged during the project becomes a routine and eventually a practice in our school, and perhaps even in the community.

Their first project was to discourage the use of plastic as food containers and utensils. Inspired by the shift of Jollibee away from Styrofoam and plastic utensils a few years ago, the students felt that the community could live without the use of similar materials. Immediately, we began to see for ourselves the benefits gained from the project. Unintentionally, the school’s problem with litter was dramatically lessened. It was surprising to find out how plastics make up almost 75 percent of trash generated by schools. Even more remarkable is how using real plates and utensils could lessen these waste materials. The true measure of success of the project though would be for students to have a change in mentality and take these practices with them outside the school.

The next step would be to address the remaining 25 percent of waste materials. And these, of course, would be the huge amount of paper used during quizzes, exams, projects and even in the love letters and informal notes students write and pass around during classes. Here, the students thought of implementing a paper recycling drive. They put boxes in each of the classrooms where students could dispose of their used papers. Of course, to encourage active participation, they designed a contest for the project where the winning class would get half of the income earned when all this paper is sold to recycling facilities.

With the prize money as part of the incentive, students made it a habit to segregate their paper waste in the classroom. Moreover, they even extended the practice to their homes as they brought in to school all the collective paper used by their parents, brothers and sisters. Two weeks after the initial run of the project, the classroom allotted to hold the recycled materials had already run out of floor space.

However, the reality of adopting environmental practices eventually confronted my student leaders. The paper being given by the classes was not properly arranged and piled up. Moreover, recycling facilities required that white paper be separated from other colored paper since they have different uses. The white paper, priced at P9 per kilo, was more lucrative than the colored paper that went for only P1 per kilo. Notebooks, too, had to be removed from their metal wiring, as recycling machines could not process such materials.

For three months, the students spent their Friday nights sorting out the recycled materials. Fortunately for me, my students were patient enough to wade through the sea of paper before their eyes and mature enough to set aside their plans of going out with their friends during weekends. My philosophy teacher once told me that taking responsibility is tantamount to accepting the dirty work that the task entails. My students certainly learned that lesson through their experience.

They were finally able to reap the efforts of their hard work last Saturday. After successfully sorting and bundling all recycled materials, they were able to surpass their initial target of P2,000. The school earned P5,000 after only two months of recycling and segregating. As they counted the money from their earnings, they thought about how much money they had previously thrown away when they weren’t recycling and the amount of future waste they would now spare Mother Nature as all of this would be reused by industries for their products.

My favorite insight, though, came from a student who was reflecting on the deeper meaning of the menial task of sorting paper for recycling. She mentioned that the project was successful because it was a collaborative effort, involving the whole student population. Had each class opted to recycle on its own, they would have never earned that much money and the practice would never be reinforced since it would have been limited and small-scale. It was nice to know that through a simple project like this, my students learned valuable lessons about responsibility, leadership, collective action and environmental protection. Most of all, I was happy to know that my students understood it was not all about the money generated from the project but the insights about life they had gained by thinking about the things that other people mindlessly throw away — and doing something about it.