This document discusses aluminum recycling programs in schools. It describes three different types of programs: 1) A one-time collection drive at Midlothian Middle School that collects thousands of pounds of aluminum over two days. 2) An ongoing in-school recycling program at Berkeley Elementary School that collects over three tons of aluminum in three months by having daily collection and weekly tallies. 3) Using an outside group like Reynolds Aluminum to generate interest and provide resources for a school's recycling program. Successful programs require strong organization, incentives for students, and an enthusiastic champion within the school.

1. by Deborah Fisher, Carol
Moore, Nancy Robinson and
Michael R. Timpane
Deborah Fisher is a lecturer in the Depart-
ment of Speech Communication and The-
ater Arts at Old Dominion University, Nor-
folk, Virginia. Carol Moore is chairman of
the Science Department at Midlothian
Middle School, Richmond, Virginia. Nancy
Robinson is the science coordinator at
Berkeley Elementary School in Williams-
burg, Virginia. Michael R. Timpane is the
area business manager for Virginia and
West Virginia, Reynolds Aluminum Recy-
cling Company.
Aluminum recycling programs in
elementary and middle schools
The increasing popularity of recycling,
coupled with high levels of public aware-
ness of the problems of solid waste dis-
posal (witness the extensive media cover-
age of the New York garbage barge), is
attracting a significant number of schools
to recycling. Opportunities have never
been better for starting a successful
school recycling campaign that can be-
come an ongoing part of a school’s curri-
culum and fundraising efforts.
School programs are critical to the long-
range goals of America’s recycling indus-
try. Since initiating consumer-based
aluminum recycling in 1968, Reynolds
Aluminum Recycling Company has con-
tinually researched just what makes citi-
zens respond to recycling. A common find-
ing is that the actual practice of recycling
changes attitudes. This is an important
point: merely studying about recycling
may not change people’s attitudes to a fa-
vorable view of recycling, but the practice
of recycling does.
Significant numbers, perhaps even a
majority, of Americans who collect recy-
clable materials got their first experience
with recycling in a voluntary program.
People who recycle in school, or to raise
money for a worthy cause, are likely to
continue recycling on their own. Strong, ef-
fective school programs have generated
good recycling rates in communities
where the demographics indicate little
propensity to recycle.
School recycling programs are unique.
In order to assure that the participants do
not become disillusioned, a recycling pro-
gram must have three characteristics: an
effective, easily understood structure (in-
cluding proper storage capacity); an in-
side champion; and high-value recogni-
tion for all participants.
(Simply put, the inside champion is that
person who will function as the program’s
quarterback, twisting the appropriate
arms when necessary and leading the
celebrations of the program’s successes.
An outsider, such as a recycling company
manager or a member of the local Clean
Community Commission, cannot be effec-
tive in this role. It must be an insider, one
who is committed to the program.)
This article will examine successful
programs of three types: a “one shot” pro-
gram; an ongoing in-school recycling pro-
gram; and the use of an outside catalyst to
engender interest inside the school.
The one shot program
Fall 1988 will be the fifth consecutive year
for an increasingly successful aluminum
recycling program at Midlothian Middle
School, just outside Richmond, Virginia. In
the fall 1987 campaign, the school of 1,275
students collected 4,605 pounds of alumi-
num (nearly 125,000 aluminum cans) in
just two days, earning more than $2,100
for the school’s science department.
The concept of the campaign is rela-
tively simple. Students collect aluminum
cans during the fall semester, counting
them as they collect them. The students
keep the cans at home until the Monday
and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, when
Reynolds Aluminum Recycling Company
takes a 45-foot trailer to the school.
Teachers load the cans onto the trailer
as other students catalog each student’s
total. Reynolds then transports the cans to
its recycling center, where the containers
are run through a magnetic separator (to
remove any nonrecyclable steel cans),
and weighed. A check is then presented to
the school.
The campaign starts in September with
a letter taken home to the parents, explain-
ing the campaign. Follow-up announce-
ments and bulletin board notices keep the
idea in front of the students during the fall
months.
Midlothian Middle School teachers
learned from their first year that a prize
structure is very important to the success
of such a drive. Students love to receive
prizes, and the more prizes the better. The
fall 1987 prize structure looked like this:
n First second and third prizes for the
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Resource Recycling November/December 1988

2. overall best-in-school collectors;
n First, second and third prizes for the top
collectors in each grade (6th, 7th and
8th);
n The class recycling the most cans per
student (this is important, as it puts
small classes and large classes on an
equal footing) gets a pizza party;
n Students in the second best class get
ice cream;
n Each student collecting more than 500
aluminum containers gets a ticket to a
local movie;
n Every student who brings in at least 50
cans gets out of the last two science
classes before Christmas, to see a
movie on campus.
This prize structure, coupled with the en-
couragement from the inside champion,
led to an 85 percent participation rate
among the students.
Any used aluminum items other than
cans were weighed and equated to cans.
1987 was the first year that an appreciable
amount of non-can aluminum was col-
lected by the students. In addition to the
expected items (gutters, lawn chair
frames, window frames), one student de-
livered an aluminum satellite dish.
The school administration has been
very supportive, in part because the pro-
gram is structured so that students miss
no classes for the recycling project. The
administration sees money as the biggest
attraction of the campaign, since it has
generated thousands of dollars for equip-
ment and supplies needed by the school’s
science department. Initial concerns
about students handling beer cans have
been overcome by the success of the pro-
gram and the attentiveness of the science
department teachers.
In the fall of 1988, teachers are planning
to get the students involved in attracting
local public support and donations of alu-
minum. The students may prepare a sign
to go outside the school and posters for
local businesses to display.
Continued on page 46.
Students at Midlothian Middle School in Richmond, Virginia deliver aluminum cans to
the Reynolds Aluminum Recycling Company trailer.
17
Resource Recycling November/December 1988

3. Aluminum programs
(continued from page 17)
It is interesting to note that the success
of this program has led to the establish-
ment of similar aluminum recycling efforts
in the science departments of two other
schools in the same county (Chesterfield
County, Virginia). In the 1987-88 school
year, the three schools together recycled
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An ongoing in-school
recycling program
To operate an ongoing recycling program
on a school campus, two factors are nec-
essary: adequate storage pace and a
program structure that keeps the students
involved and creates minimum disruption
to the school’s normal operations. Under
such a system, students at Berkeley Ele-
mentary School in Williamsburg, Virginia
collected over three tons of aluminum
cans (earning the school $2,314) in just
three months.
The money will be used to purchase
equipment for a new science curriculum at
the school. Science departments are fer-
tile ground for recycling programs, be-
cause the activities can be integrated into
the curriculum.
At Berkeley School, all 24 homerooms
participated in the program. Once a stor-
age area was identified (an old storage
shed was converted into the school’s “re-
cycling center,” complete with appropriate
sign), the program went into operation.
(Other types of storage areas that would
be feasible for a school include the pur-
chase of a low-cost, prefabricated storage
building decorated specifically as a recy-
cling center, or an enclosed roll-off con-
tainer. Such storage facilities could easily
be financed through the proceeds of the
recyclables in a relatively short period of
time.)
Each morning, students took aluminum
cans to school. The two student council
representatives from each homeroom col-
lected the cans, and recorded on a tally
sheet how many cans were recovered by
each student in the class. The reps then
carried the cans to a designated assembly
area at a designated time, to minimize
noise and mess.
The tally sheets were designed by the
recycling coordinator to make recordkeep-
ing as simple as possible. Once a week,
each classroom teacher posted the class
total and the coordinator collected the
totals to keep a record of the school total.
Each week, a different homeroom was
assigned to the assembly area, and all
classes participated equally. This gave
many students the experience of helping
to manage the program. The students
from a homeroom would accept the cans
from the reps, and prepare them for stor-
age in the recycling center (this usually in-
volved putting them into large plastic
bags).
The class in charge was also responsi-
ble for keeping the storage area clean and
reporting to the coordinator when a pickup
w a s n e e d e d .
Whenever the center would reach capa-
city (a maximum of about 1,250 pounds),
the school called the local Reynolds Alumi-
num Recycling Center, which sent a truck
and driver to pick up the cans (pickups
were needed about every two weeks).
The storage made the pickup service at-
tractive to the vendor (Reynolds) because
of the size of each pickup. This minimized
any risk from long-term participation by
the vendor. The school’s initial goal was
one ton, and that goal was attained in
three weeks.
To generate interest in recycling, the stu-
dents attended an assembly at the start of
the program. They were shown an alumi-
num-frame dirt bike that would be the
prize for the top can collector in the school.
Such a kickoff is critical for an ongoing pro-
gram to generate interest among the stu-
dents.
Other prizes for individuals included a
fashionable sweatshirt, lunch and a
movie, and lunch. The top class got to see
a movie.
To add a different type of incentive, the
teacher of the top class was treated to
lunch at a top-flight local restaurant. This
gave teachers an added boost to buy into
the program, which was essential. It is not
enough just to get the students involved;
teachers need incentives as well.
The entire school was promised a pizza
party if it met the one-ton goal. The admin-
istration, working with a local clean com-
munity task force, persuaded a local Pizza
Hut to donate 66 pizzas for the party. In
fact, all of the prizes were donated. In fu-
ture years, the program will be totally self-
supporting, and the prizes will be financed
by the proceeds, if necessary.
To keep up interest in the campaign
while it was underway, each homeroom
displayed a “recycling thermometer” out-
side the classroom, charting the number
of cans recovered by the students. The
winning class generated a thermometer
that went all the way up the wall, across
the ceiling and down the wall on the other
side of the corridor.
Public address announcements were
made on a regular basis during the cam-
paign, giving the students a running tally of
the number of cans collected and the
money earned. This created a healthy
competition among the students.
The campaign was well publicized in the
local media. The school kept the local
weekly newspaper apprised of the cam-
paign, leading to a number of articles. The
opening assembly was taped by the local
cable TV system, and shown a number of
times on the local public access channel.
46
Resource Recycling November/December 1988

4. James City County Clean Community
Commission, the local volunteer effort,
adopted the program and helped obtain
the prizes, among other things. For its ef-
forts, the commission was rewarded with a
"Keep Virginia Beautiful" citation. This
venture is now viewed as a cornerstone of
the commission’s annual activities.
This publicity led to local community in-
volvement. People would take aluminum
cans to the school for donations. Cans col-
lected by county workers were donated to
the school, and county office workers
would save their cans and deliver them. A
local judge who sentenced lawbreakers to
community service told them to clean up
the roadsides and donate the aluminum
cans to Berkeley Elementary School.
Such activities indicate that an ongoing
program is the best for a school and its
community. This strategy would be partic-
ularly effective in rural areas, where the
school is a well-known landmark.
Approximately 75 percent of the stu-
dents at the school got involved in the
1988 recycling campaign. The school in-
tends to continue the campaign as an on-
going fundraiser during the 1988-89
school year. The prize structure may be
altered, to create a prize for the top collec-
tor in each grade.
The concept of using the school as a re-
cycling center was developed and sup-
In this program, as in the one-shot pro-
gram at Midlothian Middle School, the
cans were counted on an honor system.
ported by the school’s principal, Vincent
The students tabulated their own results,
and at both schools, teachers feel that the
Frillici. Nancy Robinson, the school’s sci-
students were honest in their tabulations.
ence curriculum leader (and Berkeley’s
inside champion), took the idea and devel-
oped it into a workable plan. She had the
help of the local Clean Community Com-
mission and her homeroom students.
The participants were advised by the re-
cycling company concerning poundage
levels for efficient transportation, proper
storage methods, staging pickups, and
general logistics. In addition, the price
paid to the school reflected the general
commercial market, less services ren-
dered. By using this common-sense busi-
ness approach, all parties felt that the eco-
nomics of the effort were understood and
fair. Long-term survival depends on these
The program was successful because
of the cooperation of all the people in-
volved. Again, it is very important to
decide at the outset of such a program that
all who participate will be recognized and
rewarded.
Use of an outside catalyst
Virtually all school recycling programs are
based on an idea that someone picks up
outside the school. A teacher may read an
article about recycling, or see something
on television, or talk to an acquaintance
who is involved in recycling. Then, it is
feasible for the industry to carry the con-
cept into the school and let it grow from
(This does not, however, alleviate the
need for an inside champion. If the poten-
there.
tial for an inside champion exists at a
school, he or she will emerge no matter
what the source of the recycling idea.)
Dominion University (ODU) in Norwalk.
In order to spur the growth of school re-
cycling in the Hampton Roads area of Vir-
ginia, Reynolds Aluminum Recycling Com-
pany set up a semester-long intern pro-
gram with the Department of Speech
Communication and Theater Arts at Old
principles as well.
4 7
Resource Recycling November/December 1988

5. The department’s internship program
exists to provide students majoring in the
discipline with quality experience in vari-
ous areas of communication. Students are
screened by the department’s internship
supervisor to ascertain interests, motiva-
tion, maturity and academic background
before referral to a prospective employer.
They are also informed of the require-
ments of 150 hours of work, periodic meet-
ings with the supervisor and a final 10-
page paper evaluating their experience
and relating it to academics.
Students who are referred to Reynolds
Aluminum Recycling Company are inter-
ested in further developing their oral pres-
entation skills, public relations tactics and
promotional techniques. It is helpful for
students desiring to intern with Reynolds
to have an environmental concern, but
more importantly from the communication
perspective, it is essential that students be
motivated to promote a concept and to
bring this concept to reality.
Creativity, organization and self-confi-
dence are also needed as students plan
and execute the recycling efforts de-
signed by the employer. This internship in-
volves a great deal of time, energy and
work on the student’s part; the benefit is
three academic credits, the reward is ex-
perience.
Each semester, one or two students are
trained by Reynolds in the basics of alumi-
num recycling, and equipped with slides,
videos, pamphlets and comic books. The
intern students are charged with creating
a presentation for elementary school stu-
dents, and then delivering the presenta-
tion at a number of schools.
Even though Reynolds has a plethora of
speeches and slide shows, the students
actually build their own presentations, as
part of their learning experience. While
this development is closely monitored by a
Reynolds manager, the students are en-
couraged to be creative and original.
This is a different way of introducing re-
cycling to the schools. In other cases, the
inside champion is already interested in re-
cycling, and brings that enthusiasm and
dedication to the program. But the use of
an outside catalyst assumes that the in-
side champion may not yet exist. It is
hoped that the presentation will lead to the
development of such a champion, but
since this is not guaranteed, the incentives
to recycle must be strong.
This means that the students must re-
ceive maximum encouragement to re-
cycle. One way to do this is to have all of
the proceeds paid to the students who re-
cycle, rather than to the school. This is
feasible when recycling is presented to the
school as a somewhat altruistic undertak-
ing, emphasizing the benefits to the com-
munity and the learning experience for the
students. A successful program may lead
to the involvement of the school adminis-
tration in a fundraising program.
The recycling program must also pre-
sent a minimum number of hassles for the
administration. Given this, the “one shot”
approach works best, where the students
collect their cans at home and then bring
them to the school on a appointed day.
The outside catalyst can be used with
various groups. The ODU interns deliv-
ered presentations to single classes and
to entire schools, as well as to Parent-
Teacher Association meetings. This in-
volves various groups in the recycling ef-
fort, and it also gives the intern various
levels of experience.
The interns are evaluated by the Rey-
nolds manager to whom they report, and
this evaluation is transmitted to the instruc-
tor. The interns are also required to submit
a paper at the end of the semester, evalu-
ating the experience. This has allowed
(714) 987-6235 l FAX (714) 987-7499
48
Resource Recycling November/December 1988

6. Reynolds and ODU to fine tune the pro-
gram each semester.
The results have been mixed. At some
of the schools where presentations were
delivered, no recycling drive resulted.
Others, however, have started recycling
programs as a direct result of the presenta-
tion by an intern. These have generally
been one-shot programs, and have gener-
ated up to 40,000 aluminum cans each.
To encourage students to recycle, the in-
terns distributed bright blue bags labeled
‘Aluminum Can Recycling Bag” to each
student at the presentations. For a year
after the presentations, these blue bags
continued to show up at Reynolds collec-
tion centers in the area, usually taken in by
a child.
Summary
n To be successful, an in-school recycling
program must have an inside champion
the money (whether students or school
administration), it becomes the most
important incentive. Schools are in-
terested in the altruistic aspects of recy-
cling, but the real world often interferes
with altruism. Principals who have to al-
locate an already-strained budget will
welcome an additional source of funds.
n The local Clean Community System, or
local chapter of Keep America Beauti-
ful, are excellent allies. They often have
an unusual ability to persuade local
businesses to donate prizes.
n For more information on aluminum recy-
cling programs in school settings, call
Reynolds Aluminum Recycling Com-
pany at (800) 228-2525.
labor costs are relatively low The com-
pany’s workers have no union, Linse
notes, but do have an incentive bonus
program. Employees are evaluated indi-
vidually for monthly bonuses. They also
receive an annual bonus, based on prof-
its.
Advanced Aluminum has built its suc-
cess on savvy, planning, experience and
a whole lot of scrap metal. This is one of
many companies, in various fields, that
has proven that recycled materials use
can be a marketplace advantage.
A thriving future for Advanced Alu-
minum Products isn’t guaranteed, of
course. Prices may drop, and other alu-
minum recycling mini-mills are expected
to sprout up around the country (Rowe
believes there may be room for another
five or six in the U.S.). But based on the
firm’s four-year track record, Advanced
Aluminum could be a prominent force in
two industries - recycling and aluminum
- for years to come.
w h o w i l l r u n t h e p r o g r a m . Aluminum mini-mill
n Prizes are significant in such a pro- ( c o n t i n u e d f r o m p a g e 2 9 )
gram. All students must be given a
realistic opportunity to work toward a
prize. country’s major steel-producing regions,
n The most important catalyst that a recy- but many of those jobs disappeared.
cling company can provide for a school Partly because of the current employ-
program is money. To those who receive ment situation, Advanced Aluminum’s
4 9
Resource Recycling November/December 1988