Alysha Ulrich of Oley has recently completed earning her Girl Scout Silver Award, “Recycling in the Valley.” Alysha and her troop previously achieved their Bronze Award by running a plastic bag recycling drive throughout the district a few years ago, collecting a total of 61,852 plastic bags.
As an eighth grader, she has now taken her passion for recycling a step further within the Oley Valley School District by implementing a recycling system in the Elementary, Middle and Oley Valley High School cafeteria.
Three or four recycling bins have been placed next to the trash bins, so lunch items such as plastic bottles, plastic salad containers, and plastic utensils can be recycled instead of thrown away. Students will now sort and throw their non-recyclable items into the trash bins, and throw their recyclable items into the recycling bins by using single-stream recycling. Single-stream recycling is a type of recycling in which the separation of recyclable materials prior to reaching the plant is not necessary.
Advanced Disposal donated twenty 64 gallon recycling bins that were dispersed throughout the school district on February 12, 2015.
Alysha also produced a video clip demonstrating and explaining the recycling currently being done in both the classrooms and cafeterias throughout the schools. All of the students in the elementary, middle, and high school have viewed the video during school. The amount of recyclable trash in the cafeterias increased as a result of her project.
