County of Monmouth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 22, 2009

Freeholders honor Keansburg school on Earth Day
Students at Joseph Bolger School lead the way in recycling

Freeholder Director Barbara McMorrow presents an Earth Day proclamation honoring Keansburg SchoolFREEHOLD – Four years ago the Joseph Bolger School’s recycling effort was limited to cardboard. Since then, students and faculty have added newspapers, mixed paper, bottles and cans, and today serve as a model recycler for schools throughout Monmouth County.

In recognition of this achievement, Monmouth County Freeholder Barbara J. McMorrow  celebrated Earth Day with children and faculty at the school and issued an Earth Day proclamation commending the school for its outstanding recycling efforts.

“Earth Day serves to remind us that we have responsibilities beyond our own back yards and  challenges us to be better protectors of the environment,” Freeholder McMorrow said. “I am proud to say the students at the Joseph Bolger School have met the challenge and I commend them for it.”

Between April 2005 and November 2006, the Bolger school administration, faculty, students and cleaning service worked with Monmouth County and the Keansburg Borough Recycling Coordinator to accomplish the following:

  • Implement a school recycling program to recover cardboard, newspapers, mixed paper, bottles and cans;
  • Placed proper collection containers in classrooms, offices and cafeteria;
  • Labeled all containers for easy identification (labels supplied by Monmouth County);
    Monmouth County conducted faculty and students presentations on recycling education and how to use the school’s recycling program (County supplied faculty members with a copy of the School Recycling Program Brochure);
  • Educated the school’s private cleaning service, Aramart, to properly collect and dispose of collected materials for recovery, and
  • Created a recycling committee of faculty members, students and cleaning service to get the recycling program started.

In November 2006, the Joseph Bolger School was the first school to use the large soda recycling bottles (provided by the county) with the new Monmouth County Recycling Logo “Slow the Flow – Recycle” to kick off the school’s recycling program.

“As a result of these efforts, the school has realized a substantial increase in the recovery of recyclables and a reduction in waste disposal,” Freeholder McMorrow said.

In 2007, Bolger school students were the first to implement a student locker clean out at the end of the school year. Each year, in a two-day period, the school recovers more than two tons of paper, a half ton of clothing and about 300 pounds of bottles and cans for recycling.

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Caption: Freeholder McMorrow with Martin Slezak, 14, an eighth-grader at the Joseph Bolger School in Keansburg, where tons of paper, cand, cardboard and bottles are recycled each year. Slezak is a Green Team leader in his school and very involved in the school's recycling effort.