Changes are happening on the campus of Storm King School and the hope is it spreads into the town and village.
Last year, Aryana Martin’s sister started the Green Team, which has become part of the National Honor Society, to promote recycling. The task has been passed down to the other 10 members of the club, including seniors Martin and Grace Song.
The initiative started with just collecting bottles and redeeming them for cash. The kitchen staff would put bottles in recycle bins, but then toss the contents into the garbage.
Making it a fund raiser, the students redeemed 4,000 bottles last year and donated $200 to Black Rock Forest. One of the flaws of the project, Martin explained, is the depot didn’t accept many of the foreign bottles the students recycled. She hopes to find a new redemption center which will accept these bottles.
Moving forward, the goal is to add one new initiative each year. This year, the campus eliminated the thin red straws used to stir coffee and replaced them with wood stirrers.
In researching other options, Martin came across one alarming fact.
“In 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than animals,” she said. “That was mind boggling.”
Hoping to change the minds of others, Martin and Song visited business owners in Cornwall and Cornwall-on-Hudson. So far they’ve visited half a dozen businesses between Mountain Road and Chadeayne Circle and the reaction has been mixed.
Some owners didn’t know that other options like stirrers made of corn, bamboo, and even steel were available, but said they would look into making a change. Others didn’t seem interested.
Not to be discouraged, Martin and Song plan to visit more business in the hopes of affecting change.
Although they’ll be graduating this year, Martin and Song plan to guide the juniors on the Green Team so they can continue the recycling efforts next year and introduce new initiatives to help the environment.
Song said she’d like to teach her peers about marine life and the importance coral plays in the ocean – providing a home to marine life, as well as promoting photosynthesis of algae living in the reefs. Song suggested a fund raiser to help protect the coral.
