Recycling, reducing and reusing are three words that you probably heard a lot when you were a kid. But have you heard those words recently?

With the U.S being the leading trash producers according to Forbes, you’d really think that we need to step up our game. This is true for Liberty too.

Some students are taking recycling efforts in their own hands. Three students have arranged a project for Future Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) and are trying to set out to limit the amount of waste.

Sophomores Brianna Mills and Aly Lough and junior Jade Moore were very passionate about the topic of reducing waste and decided to make a project out of it. They went around the school and collected water bottles to be stored in the storage cabinet for use around the school. In all, they went around to each classroom for two weeks and collected about 100 bottles from recycling bins.

Whether it be science projects or supplies for an experiment, there will always be water bottles to go around in the school.

“I have always been very interested in the impact we have on the environment, and that is the career I want to go into,” Mills said, who wants to major in environmental science. “Aly and I have always talked about reducing waste, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to reduce our waste, and Jade was also very on board and seemed passionate about the idea as well.”

They are taking the project to state and they really hope it takes off in the school and community.

Chemistry teacher Mr. Herkenhoff is especially passionate about the recycling topic. He was the sponsor for the environmental club a couple years back but it died off.

“We need an education campaign to help inform students what is and what is not acceptable in the blue bins and then to encourage them to participate correctly in the recycling program,” Herkenhoff said. “If things were separated correctly, the custodians could put the materials in the recycle. Or maybe we could spare them the work at all.”

Schools just like ours are drowning in the waste that they throw out. When school custodian Mr. Morris was asked how many bags he collects per day of recycling, he says he only has to change them bi-monthly.

Although he says that the new recycling change in O’Fallon hasn’t had any impact on our school, we only recycle cans and bottles.  

“The only times we get a lot of recycling is when we have big events at the school, like the church that comes here on Sundays,” Morris said. He said he mostly just gets trash on a day to day basis.

Senior Chasteanne Salvosa even recalled arranging a recycling project when she was in the third grade. She and her school would collect things like glue sticks and Capri Suns and they would donate to a company called TerraCycle. Her school got about 10 cents per item donated.