Student Scholarships
RecycleSmart initiated the student scholarship program in 2015 to inspire and reward student leaders who have made significant contributions to reducing waste at their high schools. Since that time, student leaders from Acalanes High School, Campolindo High School, Miramonte High School, Las Lomas High School, Northgate High School, Monte Vista High School and San Ramon Valley High School have received RecycleSmart scholarships.
The 2024 scholarship application was prominently posted on the RecycleSmart website and distributed to all high schools in the RecycleSmart service area through environmental clubs, leadership classes, science teachers, administration communications and college counselors. Applicants are required to describe how they are contributing to waste prevention and sorting at their schools and/or in the greater central Contra Costa community.
For the 2023-2024 school year, two students stand out as environmental stewards and community educator leaders. RecycleSmart is pleased to acknowledge the achievements of these students with the award of the Waste Reduction Student Scholarship.
Marcus Han – Campolindo High School – $1,000
As the Associated Student Body Sustainability Commissioner for the 2023-2024 school year, Marcus led a team of six leadership students on a quest to find creative solutions for waste reduction at Campolindo High School. Their main objective was to create excitement about something that can be mundane, like waste management, and motivate action with social cues from peers.
Marcus believes the best environmental stewards involve the community around them to evoke change. During the school year, he supported and/or led three projects to encourage his school community to participate in activities to reduce, reuse and recycle.
As one of the leaders of Campolindo’s Green Club, “Team CAMPOst”, Marcus assisted in the efforts to motivate students to sort properly. His contributions included: producing videos to post on the Campolindo student Instagram account @camporedc to teach sorting and encourage students to get involved as bin monitors, plus creating 3-D signs to educate students on proper sorting with real items from the cafeteria. Most importantly, he directed his leadership team to make announcements to their classes and spread excitement for sorting.
To continue to improve the diversion rate at Campolindo, Marcus thinks his 2024-25 replacement should focus on competition between the other AUHSD schools. Acalanes and Campolindo currently have a 1% point difference (62% and 63%); this could be the extra motivation to push these high schools to the RecycleSmart Wastebuster level!
In addition to creating awareness of the importance of post-meal sorting, Marcus directed two events to recycle and reuse everyday items. The first project was developed with an understanding of the complicated combination of pressure to purchase new swag every year to show school spirit, and the expense of Campolindo branded clothing, which is sold every year and typically only worn once by students. The solution has become an annual campus thrift shop featuring Campo swag.
It took seven weeks of persistence, plus multiple Facebook and Nextdoor posts to encourage Campo Alumni and their parents to drop off second-hand school gear. Fortunately, the pile of clothes collected were plentiful, and Marcus remarked that “some items were decades old, printed with funky designs that offered a glimpse into what Campo was like when Myspace ruled the internet.”
The profits from the fall 2023 “Campo Swap” were used by the leadership committee to fund Earth Week activities, such as free smoothies. Everyone loves free food in high school. For Marcus, the lasting message from the clothing resale is Reuse. He notes that too often the topic of waste management automatically addresses how to break down waste and properly dispose of it, while actually there is still life in whatever is being thrown away.
During the spring semester, Marcus and his leadership Sustainability team found a solution to the problem of electronic waste at Campolindo High School. He was inspired to carry out this project after observing the heaps of old wires piling up in faculty offices, and understood that an e-waste drive would help busy Campolindo staff. To educate students and motivate involvement, the team developed multiple promotional videos, plus a competition with awards (food-focused of course).
The result was 1000 pounds (1/2 ton) of various broken or vastly outdated items. Marcus selected the Berkeley E-waste Collective after careful research of facilities, and determining this nonprofit would process the waste for free and not ship the parts to third-world countries. The nonprofit trains volunteers to break down the electronics and use the parts to assemble new electronics, like computers for underserved schools. With much to celebrate, Marcus, a future toxicology major, notes the additional importance of diverting toxic chemicals from the landfill.
Marcus is a resident of Lafayette. He will attend UC Davis as an Environmental Toxicology major this fall.
Videos
Madeleine (Maddy) Park– Monte Vista High School – $2,000
As a sophomore, Maddy emerged as an environmental leader by founding the Climate Action Now (CAN) club at Monte Vista High School. @mvclimateactionnow The club’s initial goal was generally to find ways to reduce emissions. Over the past three years, the club has taught the Monte Vista community and elementary school students about climate change and the importance of sorting. They have organized monthly cleanups on campus and community trails, collaborating with other schools and clubs to maximize participation. These educational and social efforts in addition to improving the physical infrastructure on campus has resulted in a path to better diversion. CAN has grown to over 160 active members with the benefit of consistent and comprehensive leadership from Maddy. This experience has encouraged her to persevere and understand that community change is possible with a passionate, active team that believes in their influence and ability to positively change their environment.
During her senior year, Maddy increased her leadership role by becoming the 2023-24 Associate Student Body president. The combination of her ASB and CAN leadership roles put Maddy in a unique position to influence people from all different areas of her campus and inspire change. She also delegated tasks efficiently, smoothly ran meetings and organized her CAN club to achieve more by creating important positions, such as Recycling Officer and Social Media Officer.
A lack of sorting and overabundance of litter were the main issues raised by many of the CAN members in the fall of 2023. Maddy took on the goal to address these issues and increase Monte Vista’s diversion rate by effectively encouraging sorting and raising awareness of the importance of sorting to decrease methane emissions.
In 2022, Monte Vista’s diversion rate was recorded as only 11%. Since SRVUSD self-hauls landfill and recycling, this rate may not have been completely accurate. However, Maddy and her team used this diversion rate as motivation to improve. Additionally, the RecycleSmart schools team was able to leverage their student interest to get a better estimate from the district facilities manager of the volume hauled from Monte Vista and other schools in the district.
As of spring 2024, Monte Vista has an approximate 23% diversion rate due to organics and recycling efforts. CAN and Maddy can also celebrate the addition of food share carts, plus classroom recycle bins and new dollies for the custodians to service each classroom. Before CAN’s observation, 67 out of 94 rooms did not have recycle bins. Now, every classroom has a recycle bin and sort signs posted. That is a 70% improvement in infrastructure.
In the fall of 2023, Maddy leaned into her club’s partnership with RecycleSmart immediately after noticing the recycle hauling containers were not being serviced. CAN became the on-the-ground eyes for RecycleSmart and Republic Services, determined to report when service levels needed attention. This spring the CAN Recycling Officer conducted a visual waste audit to help confirm the volume reported by the district hauler for landfill and recycling. This exercise also gave CAN more data on common sorting mistakes among the student body.
The CAN team began their 2023-24 waste reduction efforts by observing student mealtime habits, and documenting the location of bins around campus. Unfortunately, students were not bothering to sort, even with multiple sort stations and signs all over campus. For the past few years, the custodians have only been able to divert paper towels from bathrooms and kitchen food scraps. Mealtime bins are consistently contaminated and have to be landfilled.
Maddy and her CAN officers put together a plan to trim the physical infrastructure, to make sort monitoring easier and reduce bins serviced by custodians. They mapped out the ideal locations for stations based on student mealtime routines, collaborated with the head custodian and principal, and dropped down to 11 three-bin stations. After the new stations were in place, CAN volunteered to put up new sort signs. They posted larger banners near the bins, and began to work on additional methods to educate their community.
A meeting with the principal, RecycleSmart, Maddy and her CAN officers resulted in a comprehensive plan to deliver the message of the importance of sorting to the whole Monte Vista community in multiple ways. The principal encouraged the team to create the text for announcements and emails he would send – wanting the message to appeal to students and seeking their advice. They were also given permission and direction on how to share a sorting video with the entire student body. In March, Maddy and her officers presented their promotional plans and asked for support from all staff members.
Maddy notes CAN’s efforts and initiatives took loads of persistence and teamwork, but ultimately allowed them to drive campus change and facilitate collective action. By meeting regularly with the principal and staff, and respecting janitors, they brought sorting and climate education to the forefront. Maddy has passed the torch to her Recycling Officer who will serve as co-president of CAN in the fall of 2024, thus making her contributions more sustainable.
Maddy is a resident of Danville and will be studying Business at the Haas School of Business Spieker Class at UC Berkeley in the fall.
