During Tuesday’s school meeting, Spanish teacher Diana Moss introduced the newly-formed Harker Green Committee and presented ways for the Upper School community to be more eco-friendly.

Moss’s presentation not only suggested ways for students to be more green, such as using reusable water bottles and carpooling, but also clarified the types of waste that could be placed in the trash and recycling bins.

“There was a unanimous feeling that we can do much better than what we’re doing in terms of conserving energy, reducing our resources, creating an infrastructure that creates less of a carbon footprint, but also to create an education component [from] K -12 that helps our students understand about the importance of reducing our carbon footprint,” Moss said.

The Green Committee, formed last year, currently consists of around 30 staff members from the Lower, Middle, and Upper School and is committed to increasing the sustainability of all three campuses. The staff-only organization’s Upper School members are Andy Wicklund, Charles Shuttleworth, Christopher Nikoloff, Jeff Sutton, Kate Schafer, Lisa Radice, Mike Bassoni, Nicholas Manjoine, Susan Smith, Susan King, Nicole Hall, David Takamoto, and Victor Adler.

“It seems like a great plan; it’s good for the environment. It may be a little hard, [though] because I’m not sure all the people will listen to the rules,” Jonathan Schwartz (9) said about the trash guidelines announced at the meeting.

Although he does not consider himself an active environmentalist, he commented that he would follow the initiatives that the green committee has taken. Kristen Park (10) agreed with Schwartz, and noted that the apathy of some members of the community might lessen the impact of the rules.

“I think we need to be more aware of the environment, and I notice that some people don’t take recycling seriously because they’re just too lazy to walk,” Kristen said.

The committee’s first action involved an evaluation of the “greenness” of the campus by Paul Chapman, head of Inverness Associates. According to Green Committee Chairman, science teacher Jeff Sutton, the results showed that the school has integrated several green ideas, but that there is still room for improvement.

“I like what Mrs. Moss said this morning, and that is to just think. A lot of times, we go through our daily lives without thinking about how we do stuff,” Sutton said. “Think about what you do. Does it go in [the] recycling? Does it go in the trash? Is there a carpool? Are there ways to reduce?”

The committee plans to take a trash audit in the near future to determine how much school waste is recycled and how much is buried in landfills.

“One of the recommended ways to convince students, parents, teachers that there are real advantages both to the school and the environment is to do an audit,” said Green Committee member and English teacher John Heyes. “[We want to] find out what [our] baseline [is], where are we now and what we can do to shift that baseline. Going green actually saves an institution money.”

Students can pitch in by simply throwing trash into their respective bins, picking up litter around campus, and pitching ideas to student council on how to better the school environment.