María José Belando & Chaima Hejjaj

As environmentally friendly citizens, we must collaborate by separating waste in households, public and private centers, schools and institutes, for subsequent recycling and utilization unauthorized plants. In Murcia we have several recycling plants to treat the waste.

Trees have the cellulose needed to manufacture paper. But to obtain it we are losing of our precious forests. Prevent its disappearance is as simple as reducing the use of paper, mostly in the classrooms, doing the following: →Write on both sides of a sheet of paper before discarding it. → Put all of the paper discarded in the paper container.

Our school has begun to collaborate this year in the City Council project "Green Schools" and more recently we have become part of ESenRed (national network of sustainable schools), along with 23 other schools in the region of Murcia and in the rest of Spain.

The commitment of these two projects means that we should reuse and recycle waste paper in the school and therefore some blue bins have been placed in some classes and halls, to collect it for recycling. We wanted to check the use that is being made of containers both in class and in other rooms of our school and the results were as follows:

We visited six classrooms (three of 1st ESO, two of 2nd of ESO) and specially the hall and meeting area where there is a photocopier and also the staff room. In all these places there are two different containers, one for paper and another for general use. Below there are photographs taken and collected data.

The classroom seems clean, but there are a few papers scattered on the floor and the room is a little messy. We make a good use of the recycling bin, although there is waste of plastic containers.

This class has a poor appearance. There are papers on the floor and on the tables, but most of the tables are arranged. The use of the recycling container is correct, but we cannot say the same of the multiple use bin, which was full of papers.

Although in this picture we can’t appreciate it, the room was full of papers on the floor and the tables were disordered. They make a good use of the recycling bin, but not of the various uses bin.

The class is a little messy and food waste is scattered on the floor. They don’t use properly the recycling bin as it contains all types of plastic and paper food. The various uses bin has been used correctly.

The classroom has a bad aspect, with chairs and tables out of position. There are also papers scattered on the floor, but not many. The use of the recycling bin is inadequate. It has leftover food, aluminum foil and plastic wrap.

We found this classroom in good condition and only a bit messy with some papers on the floor. They don’t use well the containers as there was a pen and several plastic wrappers in the paper bin. The general waste bin also showed a misuse of it.

We can see that the environment is clean. Checking t he paper container we realize that there are some plastic wrappings in it, despite being a common waste bin next to it..

The staff room was neat and clean. Teachers use both bins properly, the paper and the various waste bins.

We all know that we should recycle properly. Students generally have not been able to maintain cleanliness in the classrooms and the use of containers in some cases has been inadequate. So we have failed to be responsible about recycling but everyone knows how to act properly. In the staff room cleanliness and order is observed. Are teachers more conscious about recycling? We don’t think so; what happens is that we have to learn to be more responsible and committed to recycling.