July 2006 Issue

Recycling in Irving Schools Reaches a Milestone

The Irving Independent School District has reached a recycling milestone….they have passed the one million pound mark. The recycling milestone was achieved in March, 2006.

Since implementing the school-wide comprehensive recycling program funded by a pass-through grant, which Irving received from the North Central Texas Council of Governments and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the school district’s recycling numbers have soared.

“It was an immediate success”, said Fran Witte, City of Irving and coordinator of the project. Witte stated that the school district had a recycling program in place, but lack continuity among the schools and their infrastructure.

“The funds allowed the school district to have a uniform system in place, so that all classrooms and offices were given recycling bins for their paper. The funds also paid for better custodial collection equipment so that the trash and recyclables could be collected at the same time, but in separate carts, then moved to the correct containers for proper disposal”.

Since implementing the program over a year ago in February of 2005, Keep Irving Beautiful has partnered with the school district and their recycler Abitibi Consolidated Inc. to develop innovative approaches to help keep students and faculty interested in recycling. Many of the schools have developed “green teams” to not only promote recycling, but to also encourage a more environmentally sound campus as a whole. Outreach has also extended to neighborhoods for the collection of paper and cans as schools compete for valuable recyclables as part of Abitibi Consolidated’s annual paper competition.

Since implementing the comprehensive recycling program in the Irving ISD, the program has seen an almost 45% increase in paper recycling. Additionally, the collection of aluminum cans was added to the program. Approximately 3 tons of aluminum cans are collected each quarter.

“Of course, the revenues that individual schools make from their recycling efforts is a great incentive for them to recycle as much as possible”, Witte stated.

For more information about the Irving ISD recycling program, contact Fran Witte with the City of Irving at (972) 721-2355 or Bob Horton, City of Irving’s Keep Irving Beautiful Administrator at (972) 721-2347. You can also log on to the Irving ISD’s recycling web page at www.irvingisd.net/recycle.

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