PLUMSTED: Possible school recycling expansion thanks to enriching fifth-grade project

By Geoffrey Wertime, Staff Writer
   PLUMSTED — What started out as a fifth-grade enrichment class project to explore social issues has made its way up the local hierarchy.
   A meeting last week between officials, including Mayor Ron Dancer, school Superintendent Mark DeMareo, and Business Administrator Frank Gripp, addressed the possibility of expanding the recycling program in the school district. The idea was first brought up by students in Dr. Gerald H. Woehr Elementary School teacher Scott Jacobs’ fifth-grade pullout class last school year.
   In a project designed to give students a taste of social problem solving, the class researched recycling, for which the school currently has only a limited program. They wrote a number of letters, a wave of which ended up making their way to the desk of Mayor Dancer. One asked, “What would it require to start a recycling program (at) our school?” and things snowballed from there.
   While the school currently does recycle, Mr. Gripp said the program is not yet all it could be. “We just need to become better at that,” he said.
   ”We’ve had a push from several grade levels and then from several teachers who would like to expand the program. We’re trying to become more effective and more efficient in our recycling.”
   Mr. Jacobs said his class went before the Board of Education at the end of the last school year to present its project, and described the board’s response as “very receptive.”
   The Nov. 20 meeting between officials saw the school investigating what grants might be available to get them recycling, Mayor Dancer said.
   He said one possibility is the New Jersey Recycling Tonnage Grant, which could allow the school buildings, whose properties are contiguous, to set up a recycling storage center. This would be in addition to the municipal center on Evergreen Road.
   The township would then take the recyclables in what he described as “like a shared service agreement,” since Plumsted already takes its recycling to a “state-of-the-art” Ocean County center in Lakewood.
   The center gives half of the proceeds of the sale of the materials back to the township, with the other going to the county, and Mayor Dancer said Plumsted would give a proportionate amount back to the district.
   ”This happens to be a priority, so we are moving on it as a result of the meeting last night,” he said, and if all goes according to plan, it will probably happen in the spring and not this winter.
   For the school’s part, Mr. Gripp said the district will need to acquire more containers and get a better fix on how much it will recycle.
   ”We’re doing our part to be eco-friendly and enhance the environment for our students,” he said.
   Mr. Jacobs also expressed his pleasure at the latest developments with the issue.
   ”This is incredibly empowering,” he said. “I can’t imagine a better outcome for what they’ve done, or a better way for what they’ve learned and done to be applied as a real life lesson. And the fact that they can do something that makes a difference, that they have a voice.”