Climate change, greenhouse gases and landfills are problems we are all aware of in today’s world, but one organization is trying to actively do something about it — by building a tower of plastic water bottles in the commons.
Operation 350 is taking a stand against plastic in landfills by making the student body aware of what their lack of recycling looks like.
“Recycling has been a focus of our group since its beginnings,” sponsor Beth Karfs said. “However, we’ve realized that even though we have gone to single stream recycling — which should have made us more effective at sorting trash — we are not very good at putting our refuse in the right bin.”
The neglect to sort trash into the right bins has caused the group to find new ways to make people aware of their waste, such as a sculpture of water bottles as high as the ceiling, demonstrating the 600 bottles that are discarded in the building each week.
“We are trying to start a conversation about this problem,” Operation 350 leader senior Lucas Shanker said. “Our ultimate goal is to ban all plastic bottles at our school, and this is our first step: to get students aware of the issue and to help support our cause.”
The group’s mission is to reduce, if not eliminate, the sale of plastic bottle on campus in order to limit the amount of recyclables that are sent to the landfill.
“Most students will not want to lose the perceived convenience of disposable bottles because they are not thinking beyond their immediate comfort and/or don’t think it makes a difference,” Karfs said.
Despite this perception, the group wants to bring attention to the hydration stations around school where students can fill up their water bottles with the same clean, cold water that would come in plastic bottles.
“We’re encouraging others to use reusable bottles and not buy as many bottles,” senior Emma Roberts said. “We are also trying to get the vending machines to stop selling plastic bottles.”
Even though Operation 350’s goal is only targeted for the school, the group is also hoping that the movement will spread throughout the district.
“Ultimately, the beverage bottle contract is a district agreement with Coca-Cola, and we would like to end it at the district level,” Karfs said. “We realize that students have not been very good at sorting trash, so it seems more effective to just reduce trash rather than sort it.”
The group researched other schools that had banned plastic bottles and the effort showed positive results.
“It worked well for Washington University; they didn’t see any negative effects on revenue,” Roberts said. “We were hoping to raise awareness of the issue and to get people behind the issue so that we can show the school board that people not part of the organization are behind us to and that they want something done about it.”
While showing the students the amount of bottles the school goes through in a week is eye opening, the group acknowledges the likeliness that everyone will stop using plastic bottles altogether is close to none. The only way to get through to the student body is to take away access to disposable bottles.
“Reaching every kid in a way that helps them make a good choice every time is a difficult task,” Karfs said. “Stopping the flow of disposable beverage bottles into the building for sale can be an easy task. We end the contract to remove the point of sale, and we have made a functional difference while sending a powerful message.”