Hazelwood School District Goes Green

You may have seen the green and yellow AbitibiBowater dumpster on-site to collect newspaper and other paper products, when you drop a student off at school, but until now, there had been no dedicated, effort to recycle other items.

Until now, that is. The Hazelwood School District (HSD) can now say it has 'Gone Green' and is recycling glass, cardboard, plastic and steel, along with other items.

Blue dumpsters have been added at all campuses and additional blue containers have been deployed in all schools and in the Hazelwood School District Learning Center to collect these other resources on-site, according to an HSD statement.

The dumpsters are also open to the general public.

“We recognize that we want to reduce our carbon footprint as a District,” said Kevin Cross, director of purchasing. “Any effort toward that is good thing."

Cross said the district currently has a number of trash pick-ups at each school but added that the hope is that with implementation of this program HSD can reduce the number of pick-ups, the number of containers and move a large portion of waste consolidation.

"Recycling starts to permeate into your psyche,” Cross said.

Trish Plunkett, director of HSD’s child nutrition department, estimates that school cafeterias will recycle approximately 200,000 cardboard boxes, 125,000 cans, 2,000 jugs, 205,000 bottles and 750,000 plastic cups annually using this program.

Empty plastic and metal containers and fibers, such as paper grocery bags, books, paper folders, milk cartons, cardboard and notebooks can be recycled.

Wet food and bathroom wastes should not be included. Styrofoam is also prohibited.