Letter to the Editor

Barbara Mahoney

To the Editor,

Plastic cups taped to the walls, streamers draped across lockers, strings of beads dangling from the ceiling, posters emblazoned with class slogans…..the high school halls are transformed during Spirit Week.

Last year, as I walked around admiring the creativity, a thought kept occurring to me: Is all of this stuff just going to end up in a landfill somewhere? Sadly, I knew the answer was yes. It bothered me enough that I’m writing this letter. I want to know if we can “green up” Spirit Week a bit.

Changing the hallway decorating contest seems like an easy — and smart — place to start. This is especially timely since China announced in 2018 that it no longer wanted to be the “world’s garbage dump,” according to ​The New York Times.​ Prior to 2018, it recycled about half of the world’s plastic and paper products. The ban has left countries scrambling to figure out what to do with trash they used to ship overseas. Two alternatives — burning waste or burying it in landfills — are problematic.

According to globalcitizen.org, U.S. communities generate more than 258 million tons of solid waste each year. ​The problem is that the 2,000 active landfills in our country that hold the bulk of this trash are reaching their capacity, according to a new report by the Solid Waste Environmental Excellence Protocol (SWEEP).

Although the hallway decorating tradition brings classes together, it pains me to know that within a day or two of being taped to the wall, all of the decorations are torn down and thrown into trash cans. It’s time to think about new ways to show our spirit. The seniors already paint a mural outside of the math/science office. How about giving the other classes their own corner of the school to paint? How about challenging the four classes to raise money for an environmental cause? The National Honor Society has been talking about establishing a composting program using food waste from the cafe. Could the four classes work together to make this idea a reality?

Getting rid of the hallway decorating tradition won’t solve the world’s environmental crisis by itself. But sending bags of plastic and paper trash to the landfill only makes a serious problem even worse.

Mrs. Mahoney