How a Texas Teen Transformed Her School's Recycling Habits and Offset Emissions

The Climate Leaders Fellowship program teaches students about climate change and environmental sustainability, and guides them in designing and launching a project in their own communities.

The fellowship is offered as a collaboration between the Stanford University Deliberative Democracy Lab and the Rustic Pathways Foundation.

Read about Charlotte’s impactful experience below!

Hi! I’m Charlotte Patty, a 16 year-old from Fort Worth, Texas. I love to crochet, garden, and walk my two little dogs.

As a Texan, I’ve seen climate change affect my community through record-level summer heat and prolonged droughts. During the fall fellowship, I distributed rain barrels to my neighbors to help mitigate rising water costs, which gave me the confidence to think broader for the spring fellowship cycle.

I researched my community’s waste disposal practices to design an effort to reduce our collective greenhouse gas emissions. Because paper, the most common landfilled item, produces potent greenhouse gasses upon decomposition in a landfill, I decided to tackle my school’s paper waste for my fellowship project. At the time, my school didn’t have a consistent recycling program and people didn’t think much about it, so I knew my idea could make a significant impact.

I spread the word by handing out flyers to teachers and students at school that detailed the positive impact our school could make if we prioritized recycling. I started small by distributing 5 recycling bins to classrooms. As I collected and recycled their contents every few days, my program reached more teachers who wanted me to collect their recycling as well. Other students pitched in their efforts, and in just under a month we saved upwards of 20 bins of recycling from being landfilled.

Although I couldn’t weigh it all directly, I estimate it was about 350 pounds of recycling in total. With every pound of paper recycled, greenhouse gas emissions are offset by about 4 times that amount. With that in mind, my project offset my community’s emissions by about 1,400 lbs!

As the school year drew to a close, I interviewed some of my peers about changes in their knowledge of recycling. I found that they were much more aware of the impact and were more inclined to take their waste disposal seriously at home. I plan on continuing to expand the recycling program next year and am so excited to see the direction it takes!

I’m proud of myself and what I accomplished with the Climate Leaders Fellowship because it encouraged me to step outside of my comfort zone and make a tangible impact in my community. It was invigorating to collaborate with active teens around the world and learn about how climate change has affected their respective communities. I am honored to have taken part in this positive impact on the world’s fight against climate change.