Aspen High School has been striving for years to become a greener place, though many don’t realize it. I don’t mean green as in the color, but I do mean reusing, reducing, and recycling. Many don’t know that the Earth Group has been working extremely hard to clean up our school and reduce our carbon footprint but it has been difficult with the limited support from the student body.

I am a part of the Earth Group, and am always amazed at the dedication these students and sponsor Travis Moore have for our school, simply because of their love for the earth. We need to raise more awareness about our school’s carbon footprint to students because we need their commitment if we want to get anywhere. In the past, we have introduced a composting system, and raised money for and built the wooden trash bins in the commons. That, though, was just one small step that differentiated recycle and compost from straight trash.  Instead of having styrofoam and paper plates for the cafeteria food, we purchased reusable cutlery, bowls, and plates so we don’t dispose of superfluous amounts of trash daily.

Currently, the Earth Group is working hard to accomplish more goals. We are becoming a part of the Earth Guardians, which is a clan of world health activists stepping up to save our earth. Also, we are trying to get guest speakers like Gretchen Bleiler from another organization, Hot Planet Cool Athletes, to speak to our peers because they can relate to her as a skier/snowboarder, and would listen to her perspective on climate change and hopefully encourage them to care more for our school’s carbon footprint. Not only do we have compost differentiated bins in the commons, but we will soon have those in classrooms as well. In the bathrooms, there is a superfluity of paper towels being wasted, whereas if we just had automatic hand dryers no one would have the need to use five paper towels after they wash their hands.

         Take a look around our campus. It’s not hard to notice the trash lying carelessly on the tables during lunch periods, or the overflow of paper towels in the bathroom trash cans. The print shop is also the home to stacks of forgotten printed papers of pictures and things that students claim not to have printed.

Students aren’t the only culprits of redundant printing, either. Some teachers feel the need for us to print not only rough drafts, but second drafts and final drafts so they can edit on paper, rather than online. If people realize that wasting paper does have such a negative effect on the environment, maybe they won’t print carelessly. Three to six billion trees are cut down annually, and this is mostly because schools around the world are simply using too much paper. (ran.org) “Significantly reducing paper use is probably the most important part of curbing deforestation and the environmental havoc wreaked by paper production.” (greenschools.net)
People in AHS don’t realize that using less trash and cleaning up correctly does make a difference, even if it is just one small step at a time. Earth Group, which on average has four people at the meetings, needs the school’s support. Planning ways to produce less trash in the lunchroom, print shop and creating ways for students to participate with compost and recycling does not take a genius to help with. Join, so our school can become a greener place, reduce our carbon footprint, and look so much nicer.