Tritt Elementary Rocks Recycling!

As with many of our schools, the parent-teacher association (PTA) takes leadership in introducing and supporting our curriculum. This spring at Tritt, the PTA established an Environmental Committee focused on increasing student and staff knowledge and awareness about the environment and developing skills that enable responsible decision and actions that impact the environment. Parent Kyndal Levin chairs the committee in order to grow a want and a desire to do better for the environment. Says mom Kyndal, “In just a few months of this program at Tritt, I see this desire in our students already! They just need some guidance to begin and once they have that, they are so willing.”

Levin views Cobb County environmental sustainability as vital to our own wellbeing. “We can’t do any better yesterday, but we can do better for tomorrow in protecting the planet for future generations,” she said.

Levin has been an advocate for sustainability and recycling as long as she can remember. It started with her parents when she was a youth. She remembers her own mother just beginning to make small efforts at a time and Kyndal followed her mom’s example. That continued for Kyndal when she attended the University of Georgia and started a recycling program in her sorority. She saw the cans of Diet Coke being thrown away every day and saw that it was easy to help her sisters collect the cans and take them to a recycling facility.

As she became a parent of school-age children, Levin began to see how much waste happens in the school environment. “Waste in schools is kind of appalling and when I saw the magnitude of what was happening, I thought, ‘we can do better!’. Even small efforts make an impact.”

Teachers at Tritt Elementary have been welcoming and supportive of the program, with the whole school being on board with it. Levin is especially grateful for the school’s leadership and environmental staff in participating. She says that each recycling collection is larger and everyone is learning that recycling is easy to do.

Schools can start small, by choosing activities that they can easily commit to. Levin suggests letting the kids take the lead with something manageable and then having parents participate by overseeing it. MGE offers guidance on how to start, along with curriculum and supplies.

As for what we all can do at home, Kyndal suggests that we try to be less driven by consumerism and reduce our purchasing. Everywhere we turn, we’re told we need more but we really can make due with what we have!

Want to bring recycling to your school? Contact us at bethany@mygreenearth.org.