Students have returned to school, which is one of the most potentially productive, yet often overlooked, sources of recycling and conservation in any community. 

Now is an ideal time for educators, teachers, parents and students to start planning “green school” programs built around the concepts of reducing, reusing and recycling waste.

Every year, schools produce millions of tons of waste that can either be recycled or reused, from paper to cardboard. 

“Every school needs recycling programs for office paper, classroom paper and beverage containers,” said Lisa Hemenway, community relations manager for Waste Management of Ventura County. “Office and classroom paper recycling can be as easy as equipping every classroom with a receptacle for used paper that’s collected separately from other garbage. Once the kids get into the spirit it takes on a life of its own.”

There are also many resources on the Internet covering everything from recycling to reducing consumption to buying.

DoSomeThing.org provides a step-by-step plan for starting a schoolwide recycling program.

A related site, earth911.org, gets into even funkier conservation programs, like how to travel to a prom green-style. 

Waste Management offers www.ThinkGreen.com/classroom, a K12 resource powered by Discovery Education. Teachers of children in grades K5 will find resources that will help them answer almost any question about the Three Rs of reducing, reusing and recycling. 

Parents can help schools achieve their recycling goals by reducing the amount of consumables that children carry in and by buying environmentally friendly school supplies. For example, students who bring their own lunch can cut waste by:

•Packing lunches in washable, reusable bags instead of disposable bags, and packing water in refillable bottles.

•Using whole fruits and vegetables as snacks, rather than packaged.

•Replacing sandwich bags with reusable sandwichsized containers.

For more information on starting a recycling program, call Hemenway at (805) 581-1746.