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The Reasons for Recycling
Consuming a lot of stuff also means throwing a lot away. We throw out old things when we get new things. We throw out packaging. We throw out things just because we're tired of them.

Students in River Grove, Illinois, are trying to change this throwaway mentality. First they started a program to recycle paper, plastic bottles, glass, and aluminum cans. In the first 12 years of the program, the school recycled about 311,000 pounds of paper—the weight of more than 20 elephants!

But the students didn't stop there. They decided to recycle plastic bags and milk cartons.

Then one of the students noticed computers, books, carts, and other good stuff sitting around the school, waiting to be thrown away. That led to a program called Schools Assisting Schools, which sends things from schools that don't need them to schools that do.

River Grove's trash is now dwindling, and the rewards for the school district's creative environmental projects are really piling up!

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