Making Change

Introduction

Our world is filled with stress. Stress about work, stress about school, stress about money, power, climate change, and every other possible thing we could be stressed about. But when I look out at the crowd gathered today at the Painted Bins Art Unveiling in Corte Madera, CA, I don’t see stress, I see hope.

 I see hope because we are gathered here today to celebrate the activism of some incredible kids. Kids that care about the world and show us that not only adults can make change. These kids are making a difference because anyone can make change.

We’re students in MSEL, the Marin School of Environmental Leadership. The program offers students the opportunity to become young activists in regard to climate change and other environmental topics. Throughout our four years of high school we will get different opportunities from the program to learn about a different topic and make change. In our freshman year, we have one topic per semester. During this semester, we had the privilege of working with Kathy Huber and Painted Bins. We learned a lot about the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, as well as a lot about food waste diversion.

The Importance of Composting

While we have learned so many amazing practices, there are also so many problems with the way the state disposes of waste. People in California throw away 6 million tons of food waste per year on average, which makes up 18 percent of the landfill, and is the largest single material in the landfill, according to the EPA. People need to make a change in order to be more sustainable.  

But in a world where so many people aren't willing to change their ways, how can we ever have a chance to fix things? This is a tricky question, but if we gave up when things got hard, we wouldn’t be thriving today. And if you really think about it, really break things down, small, simple solutions are the answer.

In fact, we need to start out small. And our mission begins with the correct sorting of food waste. This simple task of taking a few extra minutes to dispose of  your food waste into a compost bin helps the environment. Did you know that when food waste gets into the landfill it decomposes incorrectly and produces methane? Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change! That’s why the composting of food scraps is so essential.

But it isn’t enough to just put food waste into the compost bin, we also have to make sure that other waste stays out of the compost bin, because it only takes one incorrect item in the bin to contaminate it. This sends all of the food to the landfill, contributing to climate change. We need to be careful about sorting all of our waste!

Standing Up and Making Change

We have learned about so many incredible topics this year, but by far the most important thing we learned this semester was that youth can make a difference in the community. Currently, our group is running an art contest/awareness campaign to educate people at our school about composting. The project is an art contest in which students would design art about composting to raise awareness about the fact that our campus DOES have compost bins and people should be using them. Our campaigns have shown that we truly can make a difference.

Conclusion

Events like these are really giving us hope for the future. The fact that this many youths are passionate enough about the environment to stand up and use their voices is incredible!  Painted Bins has given an opportunity for these amazing young activists at Corte Madera’s Neil Cummins Elementary School to share their art and their important message with the world.

Youth are the future and if we want things to improve, we have to fight to make changes. Adults aren’t the only people strong enough to make this change, and that is proven here today. Let’s keep moving forward and keep bringing hope into the world.

Simone Dayton and Brynn Marovich, Freshman Students
MSEL Program at Terra Linda High School, San Rafael, CA

(Speech given on April 23, 2023 at Painted Bins Art Unveiling in Corte Madera, CA)

 Learn more about the Painted Bin solution Click here.