Schools

Teaching Recycling at Chatham Day School

Students learn the importance of sometimes ignoring the trash can.

"Oh, sure, I'll throw that in the trash," said Marigold Mike, pointing to a piece of cardboard he held up in front of a room full of Chatham Day School students. He then proceeded to pick up magazines from Toys R Us, LL Bean and other companies. "I'll just throw those in the trash, by the way," he said.

Marigold Mike, whose real name is Michael Bedrick, was at the school on Wednesday to teach the children about recycling, and was playing the part of someone who doesn't know how to recycle. It's bad, he told them, to throw such things out, since they can be recycled so easily. But that's what lots of people do—throw them out.

He asked the young students in the room to imagine if each and every one of them decided to fill up their trash cans with recyclable materials, instead of choosing to put them in the recycling bin.

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"Imagine if there were 70 of these trash cans—they would be filled up over my head," he said. "If I didn't get rid of my trash, I'd be living in a trash can."

He asked the students if they knew why it was important to recycle. "When you recycle something, you turn it into something new," one student said.

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Marigold Mike said that was true, and said that when trash dominates, lots of materials go to a landfill, and landfills use up lots of land. He then continued on to teach students about which objects are recyclable, and which are not—anything plastic with shoulders can be recycled, but bottle caps cannot be.

The event was one of a variety of Earth Day events taking place across the Chathams throughout the week. There was a Passaic River cleanup and a Wuhala Woods and Kelley's Pond restoration over the weekend, and there will be an Earth Day celebration at Chatham High School this weekend.


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