Before winter break, South High’s Green Tigers felt the need to make South as environmentally friendly in the inside as they are on the outside with composting and recycling. Two recycling bags bins were added to the school to improve recycling waste and better the school positively. “We saw this as an opportunity, something we could improve at South to make a difference,” said junior Isaiah Bischoff, a club coordinator for Green Tigers. “Generally Green Tigers… tries to see if we [can] consume less and recycle more as a community.”

Member Sasha Gitler shares her thought process on this environmentally friendly idea; “When I joined the group I thought of the idea. Something I’m really passionate about is helping to reduce my single use on plastic use, like plastic bags.”

The group spoke to Principle Ray Aponte with the idea and came up with a plan to work together along with the most visited restaurants by South students; Subway and Pineda. “Aponte helped us set meetings with the managers at Pineda and Subway to ask them not to use plastic bags. Aponte then ordered recycling bins online and placed them around the school,” said Gitler.

Aponte has made a point of listening to students and making this plan a success. “Anytime when a student comes to me on an environmental issue we can fix, I’ll always say yes, the environment is important,” said Aponte. “There hasn’t made much progress here at South High School because [the school] is so big. One of the complaints that I had was when you go to restaurants [like] Pineda and Subway they always give you these plastic bags. So these groups of students went over and talked to them about it…to change their bags from plastic to paper recyclable bags during lunches.”

Aponte and Green Tigers would like South students to understand these new plastic bag bins aren’t for garbage. “I just wish students would be better at recycling. I think we could always be better at recycling but I’m hoping that it does work out,” said Aponte. There are two plastic bins placed at South. Both on the first floor, one in the commons and one by the vending machines. The paper bags that the restaurants provide can be composted. If you would like to attend a meeting, Green Tigers meet Thursday mornings from 7:30-8:15am.