Krissie Essilfie ‘21
New compost bins for paper towels have appeared in the Campus Center, and recycling receptacles are soon to follow. These installations are the work of Install-It and Save the Planet clubs as well as programs like the Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI). These student-led organizations have sought to address climate change in new ways. Taking different approaches, these groups have launched new green projects all over campus.
Install-It, a club which installs unique art pieces around campus, and Save the Planet Club, which brainstorms different methods of spreading awareness about and promoting environmentally friendly practices, have teamed up on their most recent project: recycled art. “Our project, in collaboration with Install-It, is essentially to make recycling bins by repurposing cardboard boxes,” Trisha Tsundupalli ‘21, president of the club explains. These bins will be placed throughout the Upper School in coming weeks.
Using bright colors and lettering, they aim to draw student and teacher attention to the necessity of recycling. Tsundupalli adds, “Even though we have a recycling bin and a trash can, they’re not always used correctly, and they’re seen as interchangeable for students. This project encourages everyone to put their clean and washed recyclables into these bins.” All the recycling collected in the bins will then be turned into a 3D sculpture, to be installed on campus.
In regards to the project’s main goals, Anya Kohli ‘21, a member of Save the Planet Club, says, “Our first goal was to raise awareness about recycling, because I know a lot of people don’t know how to recycle.”
Jared Semisch ‘21, president of Install-It Club, proposed the idea. He explains, “We came up with this idea after seeing the lack of recycling that occurs and we hope that we can shed some light on better recycling habits at EA. We hope through the partnership of Save the Planet Club we are able to create, inspire others to recycle, and be creative while doing it.” In the future, both clubs hope to expand this recycling project.
Tsundupalli says, “We are working to start small by starting at EA and then venture out by learning from experts and also implementing that back here at EA.”
Six juniors in the Global Youth Leadership Institute also launched a new initiative this year to target a different aspect of environmental preservation: reducing material waste through composting. Gina Tomkowich, Middle School drama teacher and GYLI advisor, says, “We asked Sage to dump all the extra scraps of fruits and vegetables from the cafeteria, and we had to churn it every week or so, and it did turn into soil. We used it for EA Farms. Reverend Zug was really a big part of that and also Mr. Dilworth helped us transport it over to the garden.”
The inspiration for this project was largely drawn from one of the GYLI trips the students took over the summer. Tomkowich explains, “We went to the Llama Foundation in New Mexico, and that is a program where they’re composting every single thing that they use, so they [the students] wanted to bring that back here.” She adds, “A lot of the other schools that go to GYLI are also composting. There are even companies that take all of your food scraps, even bones and dairy…We could do that too, if the school wanted to pay for it, so we could compost everything that we throw away.”
The group has addressed this initiative in multiple ways already, but hopes to expand. “We’re still working on composting and finding new things to compost. For example, we’ve started putting composting paper towel bins in the bathroom, so composting is our big green initiative,” Tomkowich says. The group has recently placed composting bins in the Campus Center.
This year, GYLI members are taking the next step by making this project more public through this initiative. Will Hopkins ‘21, explains, “This year we’re focusing on adding ‘brown matter.’ We’re collecting paper towels from the Campus Center bathrooms and we’ll be composting them to help increase our soil production.” This initiative not only prevents more waste from entering landfills, but also makes the student body more aware of the impact of this composting project at EA by putting signs above the trash cans letting students know where the towels are going. Hopkins adds, “At the end of the year, we’ll be able to use the composted material on our own facilities, like the farms or the grounds, or we can sell it to local areas.”
Ruth Engelman ‘21 says to students: “I hope that I’ve positively affected EA’s negative environmental outputs through this process… If you’re interested in helping with the EA compost initiative, please reach out to me.”
In addition to benefitting EA itself, Kelly Bertucci, Upper School Teacher and leader of GYLI at Episcopal, explains, “I think our goals really are to become more conscious of what things we can use for compost and also to use our waste in a meaningful way on our campus when it’s possible.”