Earth Day and our children

Denise Oppenhagen
Published: April 29, 2008

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the under-publicized Earth Day event at the new County Complex. The enthusiasm of the participants was high and the information shared was interesting. I have to admit that I’ve lived in the county for almost 20 years and I didn’t realize there was a zoo. 

What is Earth Day? It was started in 1970 by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. He called the event a “teach-in,” believing that education is the key to changing people’s ideas about the importance of protecting the environment. And he was absolutely right. If you want change in the world, you need to start with our children. Anti-smoking, anti-drug, anti-drinking and driving campaigns — all of these focus on our children to change or prevent unwanted habits. And the strategy works. 

If, in the commonwealth’s second largest school system (behind Virginia Beach), students were taught and encouraged to protect the environment, a huge impact could be made.  Imagine thousands of students learning to turn off lights, recycle paper, plastics and metals, walk instead of drive, asking their parents to carpool to work. The impact could be staggering. The financial savings to the schools could be significant. 

One of the easiest ways to help the environment is by recycling.  Most of us have trash collectors that pick up recycling although the service can be called spotty at best.

A friend of mine, who is passionate about recycling, related to me how she caught her trash collectors putting recycling in the trash truck one morning. When she confronted them, they said that they would separate it out at the facility. She now personally takes her recycling to one of the local drop-off centers. My trash collection company collects recycling on a day separate from trash collection days which make it difficult to remember to put out the recycling. A few friends have told me they don’t know whether they have recycling collection or not. 

I know a teacher who recycles at school. They recycle paper — which in a school ends up being a huge deal. But they don’t recycle aluminum cans — probably even easier to collect than paper. I asked why and she said the school system doesn’t approve of it. I was fairly surprised by this and asked about this during the Earth Day event. They concurred — Prince William County schools do not recycle aluminum cans. I’m sure there must be better reasons than the one mentioned to me — the possibility of ants and other critters being attracted to the sugar. 

Unfortunately, many people use this, a typical reaction, as their excuse for not recycling. Recycling, which can keep tons of material out of the landfill, is an extra step. It involves putting plastics, paper and metal in a different container. There might be a little more mess. But instead of preventing teachers and students from recycling aluminum cans, the school system should find a solution. Why should they go to this extra effort? Because it’s the right thing to do. 

Children learn from adults in many ways. Do we really want to teach them that protecting the environment isn’t worth a little extra effort? Or do we want to encourage them to be environmentally conscious, show them that little steps make a lot of difference and that it’s not a difficult task to do your part? Recycling is the easiest habit to teach and the one that will arguably have the greatest impact on our future. Recycling paper and aluminum cans can also provide the school system with a little extra money in these strapped times. Whether you believe in global warming or not, recycling can take stuff out of the landfill and reuse it. It’s a lesson that’s been nearly 40 years in the making. And one that we need to teach our children. 

Denise Oppenhagen is a longtime resident of Prince William County and can be reached at .