When I think of the beginning of the school year, I think of paper. So much paper. A typical first day of school starts with a paper schedule, followed by a paper syllabus in every class, another paper syllabus and a few more paper worksheets in second period, yet another piece of paper in third period and in fourth period, you guessed it, more paper. By the time the first day is over, every student is left with a backpack full of paper, most of which will be thrown in the trash, or worse, left on the ground.

Some might think in a class like AP Environmental Science, where we learn about sustainability, everything would be paperless, but they would be wrong. In fact, I received more paper in Environmental Science than I did in any other class on the first day of school. While we watched The Lorax, a movie about the dangers of cutting down trees and wasting resources, we were given a paper handout with questions we had to answer on a separate sheet of paper.

Why are we so dependent on paper handouts in school when we live in a world with so much technology? The Grady website has a page with teacher syllabi, why must every teacher print out hundreds of copies for every student? I understand not every student has ready access to the Internet and so some copies of syllabi should be available, but there has to be a way to reduce the total amount printed.

According to The National Wildlife Federation, paper accounts for nearly 60 percent of school waste. The problem of using so much paper in school wouldn’t be as bad if we had any sort of functional recycling program. Unfortunately, you will be hard pressed to find a recycling bin in any classrooms around Grady.

And the waste at our school doesn’t stop with the excessive amounts of paper we use. At times, the courtyard and parking lot look like huge trash cans. The bushes around the school are often littered with plastic bottles, soda cans and old worksheets (probably syllabi from the first day).

Grady students need to take responsibility for their trash. And they should do it in an environmentally friendly way. We live in a city that has a truly progressive recycling program, so why are we so behind when it comes to sustainability? As a City of Atlanta public school, why can’t we lead the way in sustainability and be a model for recycling efforts in schools across the state?