When I walked down the hall this week, it was a mess.  On Wednesday this week, students worked hard to decorate different parts of hallways to compete in Spirit Day competitions.  Where some saw spirit, I saw waste. And then I thought about environmental concerns because everything is just going to get thrown out.  

The more I thought about it, the madder I got. I thought something could be done to be more productive and less wasteful.  Mrs. Mahoney recently wrote a letter to the editor of the General Consensus stating the same thing. She noted that “China announced in 2018 that it no longer wanted to be the world’s garbage dump”.  On globalcitizen.org, it says, “U.S. communities generate more than 258 million tons of solid waste each year.”  And our 2000 landfills are “reaching capacity.”

In Hamilton, according to the town’s webpage, many things are not even really recyclable.  Any plastic under 3 inches will get caught in the machine, so it isn’t able to be recycled.  Also, anything styrofoam isn’t usually recycled either. There’s too much waste!

We generate so much trash during spirit week, and it is all adding to the problem.  One thing we could do is use projector lights to decorate hallways. The ones that are projected on houses during Christmas time would be good to use.  This way, there won’t be trash! I agree with Mrs. Mahoney. There has to be a better way to show spirit and not generate so much waste.