PONTIAC -- Schools have an easy way to solve 'green' problems: Give them to the students. "Kids have a greater power than anyone else on the planet," said Pontiac High School teacher Paul Ritter, whose students implement green solutions as part of their coursework. "They don't know the answer 'no.'"
Pontiac is among a handful of Central Illinois schools that have been at the forefront of the "green" movement -- finding ecologically sound ways to preserve the environment through protecting the water, soil and air.
Pontiac senior Beth Guelde was part of a class that helped design a recycling project for Pontiac Correctional Center. "It gave the inmates another job, plus it saved money and time," she said, adding it doesn't take a large number of students to change the world. "All you need is someone telling you that you can do it."
The prison recycling program also has expanded into other institutions, Pontiac student Guelde said.
In Heyworth, the Key Club wrote a grant for recycling "years ago," said Superintendent Randy Merker. More recently, the elementary student council wanted to recycle paper so students raised money necessary for the project.
Eureka-Goodfield-Congerville School District started its work a few years ago with simple initiatives, such as
turning off lights, said Superintendent Randy Crump. Besides saving money, the district wanted to model behavior for its students.
High school Principal Richard Wherley said they did everything they could to set the tone for students and now "they are doing it." This year, students targeted homecoming, with a theme of "Go Green."
Instead of competing to build floats (which largely end up in a landfill), classes competed to raise money for charities. Then, students worked together to build three floats out of recycled materials.
At Deer Creek-Mackinaw High School, environmental science teacher Matt Thomann and 42 students collect and empty recycling containers in each classroom at the elementary, junior high and high schools.
The school pays Midland Davis in Pekin to recycle paper and Midland in turn provides the bins. Collections of aluminum cans help offset the cost of recycling the paper.
The work is counted as part of each student's grade. Thomann eventually would like to collect plastics and, long term, set up a community recycling site at the school.
At Pontiac, Ritter and his class pioneered a prescription drug disposal program that now is used in one-fifth of the United States. P2D2 provides designated drop-off locations for prescription and over-the-counter drugs and they are safely disposed of, rather than the common practice of flushing them down a drain, where they pollute water supplies.
"When you get them going in the right direction, they won't stop," Ritter said. Despite knowing that, he admits that he never "envisioned students across the nation could convince so many adults to properly dispose of leftover medications."
The changes also helped in other ways, as well. At Eureka, where plastic bottles are collected from the cafeteria and after sporting events, there isn't much left for the janitorial staff to clean up because students voluntarily pick up trash to make sure it is recycled. Wherley said the school now is looking at ways to reduce or reuse food waste.
The infectious energy of recycling at Pontiac led the school to obtain a grant for an auto-scrubber. "Instead of using harsh chemicals to clean the floor, we now have a machine that uses zero chemicals," Ritter said.
The kids' newest project is battery recycling, which is expanding throughout Livingston County.
"Kids educating communities is the greatest education in the world," Ritter said.
Kellie Freitag contributed to this story.
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