Three Addison 8th-graders change their town's environmental attitude

It started out as a science project, and ended up turning around a town.

The three students at St. Philip the Apostle School in Addison noticed not many of their neighbors seemed to be recycling their soda cans, newspapers and milk jugs. Indeed, only 11 percent of the village's waste was being recycled - below average for the suburbs.

"We knew we could change that," said Dana Gattone, 13, an eighth-grader at the school.

The girls pondered: What if you dropped off a flier explaining how to order a $6 recycling bin? What if you just dropped off a free bin? And what if you give people a bin AND explain how to recycle?

The girls tested each approach on a different block. And they found that when residents got both a free bin and information about recycling, participation in curbside recycling shot up to nearly 90 percent.

Dana, Maggie O'Brien and Angel Loizzo won two national awards for their "Recycle Because You Care" project, as well as the Governors Green Youth Award.

Also impressed was Richard Vandermolen, municipal services director for Allied Waste, Addison's waste hauler. He used the girls' data to apply for a $60,000 state grant, awarded through a "very competitive" selection process.

And last week, thanks to Dana, Maggie and Angel, 25-gallon round recycling bins were dropped off at houses and duplexes in Addison. A sticker lists what's recyclable, and residents don't have to separate anything.

"Participation is going to skyrocket," Vandermolen said.

In the grant application, Vandermolen estimated the total amount of garbage that's recycled would increase from 11 percent to 16 percent - the average for DuPage County. Those statistics are based on tonnage, while the participation rate is the percentage of households that recycle.

In neighboring Bensenville, participation shot up from 20 to 80 percent after bins were provided in June.

"I fully expect to see this in Addison," Vandermolen said. "I'm hoping for 100 percent (participation)."

Addison already had curbside recycling, but residents either had to order a small blue bin for $6 or remember to buy special clear plastic bags at the store. Not a huge deal, but just inconvenient enough to discourage people from recycling. And many residents said they didn't know where to get the bins or what to put in them.

"If they have the bins, they're more likely to use them," Maggie said.

Maggie, Dana and Angel also are spreading the recycling message through a public service announcement they made for the local cable station and a YouTube video, available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Df6SQMLL6w.

The girls' study, which took place last year when they were seventh-graders, is part of a two-year green initiative at St. Philip the Apostle.

The first year's emphasis was on recycling with efforts to reduce paper and lunchroom waste. Students researched recycling rules and learned the little individual milk cartons in school lunches are now recyclable. They brought home recycling pledge cards for their families, and that week the phone was ringing off the hook in Addison's village hall with people calling about the recycling program.

"We saw the impact of children was enormous," said Dawn O'Brien, the school's director of development.

This year's focus is alternative energy sources. Last week, the school dedicated its new solar panel, which provides some electricity but mainly introduces kids to the technology "so when they grow up, they don't think it's just something they do in California," O'Brien said, "They'll know it works."

The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation provided the grant through the its Solar Schools program, and St. Philip students pitched in by selling energy-saving CFLs and LED Christmas lights. Students can log in to IllinoisSolarSchools.org to see in real time how much energy the panel atop their school is generating.

The girls' timing couldn't be better. "In the past couple of years, interest in recycling has really heated up again," said Mike Mitchell, executive director of the Oak Park-based Illinois Recycling Association.

The girls' project won two national awards - a gold medal in the Christopher Columbus Awards, a science and technology competition for middle school students, and second place in the nation in the Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge. They went to Disneyworld in June and Boston in July, where they got to tour the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and meet with environmentalists featured on the Discovery Channel.

But knowing how much garbage they're keeping out of the landfill might be the best reward for all those early mornings the three girls spent counting recycling bins before school.

Said Angel: "I think it's awesome we can make such a huge difference in our community."