Mother-son team recycles hundreds of papers per week

PALMER -- Each week, Palmer Junior Middle School's pile of hundreds of newspapers delivered to each of its individual classrooms is collected, stacked, and transported to the Valley Community Recycling Center, all because Kevin Ferry, an eighth-grader at the school, noticed a discarded newspaper on the floor of the cafeteria two years ago.

"Last year, I was walking to the cafeteria and found a newspaper all over the ground," Kevin recalled. "My school gets about 100 newspapers every day and they all went in the trash can. That sparked the idea in my head about starting a newspaper recycling program."

Although the program was founded single-handedly by Kevin, he receives help from his mother, Ann Ferry, in transporting the papers to the recycling center, and cooperation from the principals, teachers and janitors at PJMS in their collection.

Kevin gathers newspapers from around the school two to three times per week, depending on the amount of papers deposited in the bins. "We've got a routine down, we've been doing it for so long," Ann said. The job requires constant vigilance, since the papers can pile up easily. "When I came in here after Christmas break," said Kevin, motioning toward the alcove that houses one of his bins, "the whole place was just covered with papers."

The job is not without its hardships. "It's hard to move the bins around with the wind and the snow," Ann said. Kevin mentioned that, since he transports the papers in the morning when other students are beginning to arrive, he often has to wade through congested halls with his burden.

Kevin and Ann have attempted to convince local recycling organizations to grant them a disposal unit to cut down on the inconvenience of transportation, but thus far have had no luck.

Kevin continues to refine his recycling effort on his own, however. A year ago, he was collecting newspapers using cardboard boxes left in individual classrooms. However, the papers piled up so quickly that the system proved unable to accommodate them. This year, he has upgraded to large plastic bins, purchased at his own expense and left in the teachers' lounge and the hallway. "This way, the teachers get some exercise, too," Kevin joked.

The duo would like to see student recycling programs crop up at other Valley schools as well, and believes that there is certainly sufficient need for them. Ann said more than 60 schools Valley-wide receive papers through the same distribution program, and more than 450 individual classrooms collect newspapers that simply go to waste. Ann also estimates that she and Kevin collect roughly 100 papers per day from Palmer Junior Middle alone. One hundred papers a day five times a week nine months a year from 60 different schools adds up to quite an impressive pile of parchment. Currently, most of these papers are carted off to the landfill, where they add to the stockpile of trashed papers that already constitute the largest single variety of material in landfills worldwide.

Two years of paper collection has resulted in a total of almost 60,000 newspapers handled by the mother-son team.

Kevin's tireless efforts over the last two years have recently earned him a Prudential Spirit of Community Award, a distinction given to middle and high school students who demonstrate outstanding volunteer service to their communities. The awards constitute the United States' largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteering. As a winner of this prestigious award, Kevin receives $1,000 and a free trip to Washington, D.C.

"People think that community service is a thankless task," said Esther Heck, the PJMS teacher who nominated Kevin for the award. "It's great to see Kevin's efforts being rewarded." Heck hopes that, once Kevin graduates from PJMS, another student can be found to carry the recycling torch.

For his part, Kevin hopes to continue his recycling work at Palmer High, where he will study next year; the lessons he has gleaned from his volunteer work are enduring. "I learned the responsibility of a job, and that appreciation comes with hard work," he said.

However, Kevin takes both his hardships and successes in stride, and there are papers still remaining to be recycled before the day is done. "It's a good thing that they don't deliver on weekends," he reflects as he loads papers into his mother's trunk. "If they did, this would just get too crazy."

Contact Daniel Spoth at daniel.spoth@frontiersman.com.