She Means Well - an anonymous guest post

She means well

Such a damning phrase.

We have a mum at school that is passionate about the environment. So passionate.

She means well.

More often than not you can find her somewhere at school going through the rubbish bins to make sure people are putting the right things in the right bins.

She means well.

God forbid you forgot to remove the hard plastic handles off the soft plastic bag before putting it in the soft plastics recycling bin. The hard plastic handles should have gone into regular recycling. That bag will be pulled out at assembly as demonstration of our unacceptable recycling behaviour.

She means well.

One memorable day she emptied the contents of the dumpster into the school principals office then took 2 hours of the principals time sorting out what could have been reused and what could have been recycled.

She means well.

The sustainability display in the school foyer has a small ziplock bag of glitter attached to it, glitter recovered from various rubbish bins around the school. Mute testament to our wasteful glitter usage.

She means well.

The photocopy room has boxes, paper printed on both sides to be shredded, colored paper printed on one side to be reused, plain paper printed on one side to be reused, using fresh sheets of printer paper is discouraged.

She means well.

The post school Christmas party clean up ran an hour over time as she emptied all the rubbish bins into the school oval and checked that the correct rubbish was in the correct bin.

She means well.

The recycling program is being pushed through new additions and changes coming faster than students and staff can keep up with.

Make a mistake, risk an hour long lecture on sustainability and recycling. 

She means well but her intense passion and policing of the rubbish is off putting and alienating. 

Recycling seems so hard, unachievable.