By Mike Sundblad, Glencoe-Silver Lake YES! coach
The Glencoe-Silver Lake High School YES! Team has been working on developing an E-85 fueled high mileage vehicle for the 27th annual MTEEA Supermileage Challenge. One way the team developed to help fund their project is through a community-based recycling initiative. Students have been contacting businesses, industries and agriculture stakeholders in the community. They have been working to educate these groups on the importance of reusing metal resources to reduce the amount of materials the United States mines from its own borders as well as the economic benefits of recycling instead of buying new. Groups of students and adults traveled to sites to clean up old unwanted materials, both to recycle and to beautify. Over the course of 6 weeks, twenty students and parents sorted and loaded trailers and trucks with old farm machinery, discarded industrial processing equipment and household metal refuse.
Students learned about the different types of metals that can be recycled and how to tell them apart. The students have especially enjoyed disassembling the materials for proper sorting and recycling.
Through this initiative they have already raised $4,500. The group will use these funds to help pay for building an E-85 vehicle and pay for their trips to Brainerd International Raceway and Kansas City Speedway. They will finish collections in April, but may continue the project throughout the summer in anticipation of the next GSL YES! team project.
