School Desk

Compost crusaders

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Walking to and from Marble Hill High School over the years, senior Stella Boye-Doe, 17, found the amount of trash strewn on the nearby sidewalks, roads and even in and around the school’s garden a troubling sight.

“There was nothing really being done to fix it,” she said.

When Marble Hill and the other six high schools housed within the John F. Kennedy Educational Complex on Terrace Avenue began pushing for recycling and sustainability on campus, Stella and her classmates jumped on board.

“We wanted to make a change before we destroy the environment by being careless,” she said.

Now, each school has a sustainability coordinator and the building is in the process of forming “green teams” of students who will work to mobilize their peers to action, explained Bronx Theater teacher Danny Steiner, who acts as his school’s coordinator.

Mr. Steiner began the campus’ sustainability push and has spent the last three years advocating for recycling and composting there.

“I’m trying to get them psyched up,” said Mr. Steiner. “There are civic minded people here — not everyone is willing to get their hands dirty, but there are a lot of us.”

He worked to install one composting bin in the campus’ Enchanted Garden, next to the faculty parking lot outside the school, and three bins inside the school, where he says neighbors bring their vegetable scraps and leaves. 

With the city pushing for composting and placing bins in buildings throughout the five boroughs, Mr. Steiner hopes that the Kennedy schools themselves will soon begin composting scraps and fallen leaves, rather than throwing them out. 

The campus recently installed solar panels on its roof, which will provide five percent of its electricity needs. The move drew Mayor Bill de Blasio to the school in September, for a tour of the school and a press conference at which he described the city’s sustainability initiatives.

Stella said and fellow members of Marble Hill’s student council plan to join the green teams once they are up and running. They have also been brainstorming ways to involve students in the movement. 

Marble Hill High School, composting, JFK Campus, Danny Steiner, recycling, Maya Rajamani
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