Manhattan Environmental Club reached out to clubs at Manhattan High School to help pay for recycling throughout the school. MEC was able to pay for this year’s recycling with the help of StuCo and Interact club, who both donated some of their funds to keep recycling at MHS.

This school year was the second year that MEC has been in charge of raising funds for the recycling at both campuses. Before the club started raising funds, MEC had been funding the recycling with a grant given to them before it expired last year. 

“For the first couple of years that we had it, that was getting paid off a grant. It was money that we were given to do recycling,” club sponsor Clancey Livingston said. “Last year the environmental club had enough money to cover the cost of recycling we had that. This year we don’t or didn’t, I suppose.”

It costs MEC $850 a year to have recycling at both campuses, which was something they struggled with this year. Last year MEC was able to hold three fundraisers but because of lack of club participation, the club has not been able to hold one yet this year.

“We’ll do fundraisers and from whatever money we have, we’ll go, okay, what can we do with the amount of money that we have, what can we supply,” senior club president Elora Neff said. “How many more fundraisers do we need to do to be able to have this and be able to do this.”

Since recycling at MHS began, clubs have been funding it because of problems that could arise if the school began funding the recycling.

“If the school takes over paying for the recycling, then because of how it’s contracted… it becomes the responsibility of maintenance to keep it clean and empty,” Livingston said. “That turns into an issue with… the maintenance contract. Is that something that is actually their job? Does it have to be added? It becomes this whole bigger issue.”

Livingston is applying for another grant to help fund the recycling.

“The problem is finding [a grant] and then applying for it and applying for those sometimes is, some of them are really, really competitive,” Livingston said.

MEC wants to be able to fund the recycling without the help of other clubs and boost motivation within the club.

“We can’t keep depending on other clubs, we need to be able to sustain ourselves,” Neff said. “So we need more people who are motivated to help, and sit down and be like, okay, this is what we need to do. We need to make this much money. This is going to be the best way to do it.”