Five, six years ago when we started the Green Club, there were no recycling bins anywhere. Everything was going in the trash.”

Jean-Paul Arsenault, PHS science teacher

PORTSMOUTH — For too long, some of the more environmentally conscious students at Portsmouth High School watched classmates dump recyclables in with the regular cafeteria trash.

“Five, six years ago when we started the Green Club, there were no recycling bins anywhere. Everything was going in the trash,” said Jean-Paul Arsenault, a PHS science teacher and the school’s student activities coordinator.

So the club solicited funds to purchase recycling bins for all classrooms and the cafeteria at PHS. But that didn’t go as planned.

“The problem with the ones in the cafeteria was that they had holes in the bottom,” Mr. Arsenault said. “They were the same blue bins that you keep outside your house, so they can drain. Kids were throwing in milk cartons and soda cans that had liquid in them. So those lasted a day.”

Then a couple of the big green bins were installed. That wasn’t the answer, either.

“For the whole cafeteria there were two of those on the far ends of the cafeteria, and there were about eight trash barrels (in the middle),” he said. “High school students being who they are, they’re not going to walk over to the recycling bins. I mean, they purchased plastic, reusable trays, and kids were throwing those away.”

That’s when students got serious and built seven of their own recycling stations as part of Sophie Taylor’s senior project. Four of them are already in operation in the middle and elementary schools, and the remaining three will be placed in the PHS cafeteria starting in the fall.

“It was originally Mr. Arsenault’s idea, which he got from the Bristol-Warren school district, because they implemented 10 stations throughout their district,” said Sophie, who just recently graduated from PHS. The winner of an environmental award from the Aquidneck Land Trust, Sophie will major in environmental engineering this fall at North Carolina State University.

Each recycling station has three receptacles — for liquids, recyclables and trash. (“The goal in the next couple years is to add composting,” added Mr. Arsenault.) While the holes on top are big enough to be convenient for disposal, they’re just small enough to prevent those plastic trays from falling through. Instead, the trays will be stacked atop each unit.

“The recycling here in the cafeteria and at the other schools was borderline nothing. So, we’re going to take all the trash barrels out of the cafeteria and we’re going to have just these units,” said Mr. Arsenault.

There are about 15 students in the Green Club, but a total of about 50 people helped build the units. 

“Everything was made from scratch,” said Mr. Arsenault, noting that other students, including those from the Oceanography and Community Service clubs and an environmental science class — also contributed. 

“The maintenance department has also been great. They helped me with the first big bulk order and then they’ve been shipping them out as they get finished,” he said.

More recycling, more money

Hopefully, the new stations will not only improve the schools’ recycling rates but the town’s as well. Currently, trash and recyclables are taken directly from schools to Johnston by a contractor, so they’re not counted toward the town’s recycling rates.

“It bypasses Portsmouth and goes right to the landfill,” said Mr. Arsenault. “The town gets money for the recycling it brings to the landfill. For some reason the school is not involved in that. The last I spoke to the Recycling Committee, they were looking into that and asking why. Why aren’t we getting credit for it because if we’re increasing the recycling at the schools — with two, three thousand kids — if nothing else this would certainly help. That’s the goal.”

Besides encouraging students to recycling more, the project gave Green Club members a crash course in civics because they needed outside funding for the stations. Armed with a PowerPoint, they pitched their idea to several municipal boards.

“A couple of us volunteered to write a letter to a couple of town administrators, asking them if they’d be willing to fund this project,” said Sophie. “Myself, Catie Gaspard and Grace Cavanaugh gave a couple presentations to the Town Council, the Solid Waste and Recycling Committee and the School Committee.”

The club was able to secure funding for the seven units, which cost about $1,000 apiece.

“I guess I learned a lot about how the town meetings are run and how that all works,” said Sophie.