Recycling My Own Paper

The School District of Philadelphia does not recycle and this has never sat right with me. I have imagined all of the paper and notebooks that I would throw out at the end of the school year. Thousands of sheets of paper are printed on, used, and thrown out everyday at schools and it’s upsetting to imagine all that going into a landfill.
For a long time I have been wanting to become more environmentally friendly. I have a core memory of making my own recycled paper in The Franklin Institute when I was in elementary school. I thought it was the coolest thing and I’d always wanted to try it out again. I would even keep my paper from school hoping that I’d recycle it myself one day. I didn’t want to go through the process just once and forget about it so I thought my capstone, a long term project, would be the perfect opportunity to try it out.
For my project, I collected paper from SLA and my Mom’s office, Roffman Miller Associates Inc, with the purpose of recycling it and eventually returning it back to where it came from. I experimented with trying to make different styles of paper and different size frames. I even made my own homemade frame. I wanted to share the knowledge I had learned so I made a “How-To” video on recycling your own paper.

Link to Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rsJPIbg4MNR2brh98xikqVNgVpaYGQqS/view?usp=sharing

The Abstract:

According to Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability, 35,000 tons of clothing and textiles are thrown away in the city each year. I created Drop and Shop to lower that number. By providing a place for students to drop off clothes they don’t want anymore and others to shop for free, new-to-them items, fewer clothes go to landfills. Students can stop by anytime, and anyone is allowed to shop, regardless of whether they’ve dropped clothes.

I officially started in March by putting a poster and collection box out on the first floor. I also launched an Instagram account to promote the project. The racks and hangers are borrowed from Ben Franklin Community Closet, and SLA’s vocational training program helped me organize everything. In the past five weeks, over 200 items have been dropped and 85+ shopped.

I created a spreadsheet for inventory of the clothes and updated it at least once a week. I then made graphs showing how the number of items each week varied, as well as the frequency of items and sizes. I’ll provide an analysis during my presentation.

I’ve heard lots of positive feedback so I decided to keep the Drop and Shop running until the end of the year. My goal is to find a purpose for each item, meaning that none will go to landfills. There is also a 10th-grader who is going to continue it after I graduate.

As clothing production and processing exacerbate the climate crisis, programs like these are the future.

The Product:

A google drive folder including the guidelines, some people shopping, posters I made, and pictures of the setup throughout the weeks.

The Instagram account: @sla.drop.and.shop

Annotated bibliography