MORGANTOWN — A bunch of Brookhaven Elementary students were trash-talking Tuesday night at the Monongalia County Board of Education.
The members of their school’s Green Team environmental initiative discussed recycling, too.
Lots of litter ended up in waste cans and not the hallway or school grounds last fall courtesy of the effort, the team told BOE members.
In fact, the trashy take would have filled the beds of more than 40 full-sized pickup trucks, had it been tossed that way.
A trash run along the city’s rail-trail system in October netted another 170 pounds of discards, they said.
And the recyclables brought in, the team happily reported, would have filled another 30 pickup trucks.
A tree grows in Brookhaven
Brookhaven Elementary has long had it in the bag when it comes to environmental outreach, school principal Davene Burks said.
A parent volunteer wrote the grant that allowed the school to most recently partner with the Friends of Deckers Creek environmental watchdog group.
Last spring, the team planted Rising Bud Redbuds around the school and campus.
Besides the obvious environmental benefit, the trees were planted to showcase the seasons, the Green Team said then.
Fall, especially, they said.
That’s when the Rising Bud leaves morph into bright orange and yellow hues.
Burks likes the arbor-longevity of all.
“They’ll get to come back and see ‘their’ trees over the years,” she said of the students who sunk them in soil.
Pop (bottle) quiz
With parent-volunteer Jessy Wrye Coffman helping, the Green Team conducted a recycling quiz for board members, with a few factoids tossed in. (Hint: If you’re a fan of Hershey’s Kisses, remember that the foil the chocolate delights come wrapped in is recyclable).
The board learned that a Styrofoam egg carton isn’t recyclable — not technically.
BOE President Ron Lytle, though, hatched a reusable solution.
“That’s when you take it to a farm and fill it back up with eggs,” he said.
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