According to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the rate of recycling in Virginia has declined by 3% in half a decade. While this percentage may seem miniscule, it’s the difference between over one million tons of recycling material. These numerical extremities, yes, feed into pessimism, but they also pose a challenge. If a single increase in percentage is a substantial gain for our environment, then aiming for 1% more is both a meaningful difference and a less overwhelming goal. We are being dared to make a change, and our Hayfield Gardening Club has collaborated with Fairfax County Public School’s Get2Green program to heroically rise to this undertaking.
Starting February 19th, The Gardening Club plans to utilize Hayfield’s naturally concentrated population and waste to effect a profound environmental impact.
“We hope to get a good routine started where we pick up recycling every Wednesday after school and teachers get in the habit of putting their recycling bin out for us to collect each week,” science teacher and Gardening Club’s Co-Sponsor Lindsay Kibben said.
Careful planning and organization is half the battle. In truth, the real war is fought in coordinating with high school teachers and students.
“We not only need our volunteers to help out, but we need teachers and students to really put in the effort as well…We have gathered volunteers from the Gardening Club along with others from the Science Honor Society…. Also, by advertising service hours as a slight incentive, [the Gardening Club found] a way to increase the student participation,” Ava Derks, a senior and Co-President of the Gardening Club, said.

Utilizing help from Honor Societies and teachers is necessary in order to carry out recycling collections from every nine through twelfth grade class. That being said, not all recycling participation is necessarily beneficial help.
“Our biggest concern is communicating what can and can’t be recycled. We’ve posted signs near the recycling bins to make sure our recycling doesn’t get contaminated or else the whole bin has to go in the trash,” Kibben said.
These signs and other informative measures all indicate acceptance of mixed paper, plastic, tins, and cardboard, but they discourage the use of plastic liners in recycling bins and recommend a clear plastic liner if absolutely necessary.
“[These] environmental initiatives were [taken due to] the fact that not a lot of people were properly using the recycling bins in the classrooms and often using them as a second trash can.” Abigel Daniels, a junior and Co-President of the Gardening Club, said.
Students’ lack of properly sorting recycling materials and trash may not be from lack of knowledge of what goes in the blue bin but from general apathy of its impact. “Recycling”, in a way, has become a buzzword. It’s become an act that we all generally associate with the goodwill of the environment but fail to consistently make a change due to a lack of further passion beyond its surface-level connotation. The Gardening Club has done their research and gotten their support from Get2Green for an efficient recycling program and informative posters, but it’s up to us, the school body, to take advantage of the blue-print they’ve laid out. It’s up to us to care.

The National Institute of Medicine posted a research article Impacts of Plastics on Plant Development: Recent Advances and Future Research Directions describing the impact of microplastics on the soil and plants that end up as a composing factor of the food in our kitchens. Results verified that variants of biodegradable plastics inhibited lettuce, tomato, and water spinach root and shoot growth and altered gene expression. Plastic is prided on its lack of degradation and long term wearage, however, most plastic products are thrown away after its first use. These findings of the effects from research on concentrated microplastics on our soil are not just simply experimental, but they are representative of our ecosystems today and should be viewed as such. We need to see the flashing alarm that plastic pollution poses on our ecosystems and our health from the food that we consume. We need to treat recycling and other environmental solutions for what they are: a necessity to be implemented today, not simply another New Year’s Resolution to enact in ten months.
The increasing numbers of plastic pollution and general decline in recycling should be met with an urgency towards change, not paralyzed fear. I encourage you to sign up for a Wednesday slot for recycling and join Hayfield Gardening Club’s Schoology Group: 4ZSR-2M4X-32T8W. The excitement and welcoming nature of the club is immediately apparent the moment you walk into the vicinity.
“Working towards a recycling friendly school, we not only make a larger impact, but we pave the way for other FCPS schools to follow,” Derks said.