The Results Are In! Race to Recycle Winners Announced

During the month of November, thirty BPS schools competed in the second annual Race to Recycle Competition, which proved to be a great event to motivate students and staff to RECYCLE MORE & TRASH LESS. Many schools used the opportunity to kick start their programs, form student Green Teams and engage in friendly competition with the goal of being the top Recycling Rockstar!
Ultimate BPS Rockstar Recycler: Carter Development Center
High School Rockstar Recycler: Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers
K1-K8 Rockstar Recycler: Rafael Hernandez School
K0-K5 Rockstar Recycler: JFK Elementary School
K0-K2 Rockstar Recycler: Baldwin Early Learning Pilot Academy
See all the results, including the breakdown of each grade level category here.
Lee School Recycling Team 2015
Joseph Lee School Recycling Club

There were some great stories that came out of the competition, great strides made in getting school recycling programs up and running, folks educated and engaged, and our trash volumes down. Recycling Coordinator at the Joseph Lee School said, “My students are becoming more independent with recycling and custodians have stated that there is significantly less trash since we started this program in Sept!”

Sarah Chang, educator with e-inc, a non profit that works with schools to improve green operations and bring sustainability to classrooms,  helped implement cafeteria milk carton and tray recycling at the Josiah Quincy Elementary School and had this to say, “It was amazing how much recycling we were able to get and now we need more bins to store all this additional recycling!” Students and staff at the Quincy recycled so much that the custodian was able to reduce the trash collection from five days to four (and is hoping to get it down to 3), saving the district $2,600 a year.
Custodians with Milk Cartons_Quincy ES
Proud custodians at the Quincy Elementary School showing off the milk cartons recycled during lunch.
Lunch Trays Stacked_Quincy ES
Schools that can stack and recycle their clean lunch trays performed very well in the Competition.
The 2015 Race to Recycle competition was a great success and resulted in:
  • 30 schools participating (eight k-8; eight K-5, six K-2 & eight High schools)
  • 13,000 students impacted
  • 5 schools started a Green Team or Recycling Club as a result of the competition
  • 6 schools started cafeteria tray and/or milk carton recycling as a result of the competition
 Final Results_All Schools