For several years Manhattan High’s recycling program has been paid for by clubs. Earth Club used to do it alone, but soon realized it was becoming expensive, so other clubs joined in to help pay.

This would be most similar to if you were to go to a restaurant and the bill included heat and electricity costs with it. That makes no sense, and neither does clubs having to pay for recycling.

Recycling should not be paid for by clubs or students, it should be the responsibility of the district or the school. 

The school does have other expenses like: construction, keeping the school more sanitary than ever before and technology for everyone to have, onsite and offsite. They surely can add the recycling bill to that list. It is just as important as all of the other expenses.

On average, schools around the world will cut down three and a half to seven billion trees per year for their own personal needs, www.usi.edu claims. These needs include primarily paper. If we were to recycle a partial amount of these papers, it would give back to the trees that were lost. It wouldn’t replant them, but it would definitely help more than hurt.

Recycling is a very important task that everyone should do. It’s not a hard task to take on, and it is great for the environment. Effects of not recycling can lead to things like: destroying animal habitats, running out of natural resources and a floating pile of trash in the ocean which is already a thing.

You’ve probably heard the saying “reuse, reduce, recycle.” almost every elementary school has units on this and drills the students to help aid that. They would do this so the students hopefully would learn to do exactly what the slogan says.

MEC did a clothing drive earlier this year in February, looking for donations to help those who are in need. There had already been 100 articles of clothing donated in the first couple of weeks and gained much more as time went on. This is what MEC will do for others. They aim to help everyone. 

While they would help the school with paying for recycling, it shouldn’t be their job to do so. It shouldn’t be any of Manhattan High’s clubs’ jobs. The school budget should be used to pay for the harm done to our environment.