 Hi, I'm Angelica. I'm a student at CCV and here is my name is Emily and I'm studying Allied Health Sciences at CCV. I'm Myra and I'm studying also Allied Health Sciences at CCV. I'm Fatuma and I'm studying business. We all did our research on recycling and does anyone want to talk about the importance of recycling? Do you guys want to tell us how important recycling is in Vermont? Yeah, so a lot of it is when recycling is put into our landfill and put into the dumps and all that. A lot of greenhouse gases, harmful chemicals are released which is polluting our air so by recycling it's actually reducing pollution. It's also important because there's a lot of deforestation that's happening and a lot of habitats are being destroyed due to the fact that we are creating so much from raw materials when we actually don't need to be using raw materials. We can use post-consumer materials instead and then it's just better for the environment. So then kind of like going off of that like talking about like what we can and can't do that will things that will will and won't harm the environment. Do you have like a list of things that are good for the environment that we should keep doing or lists of things that we shouldn't do that will harm the environment? Well it's just basically I feel like the recycling do's and don'ts so by putting you know all this bad stuff into our rubbish you just need to rinse out your containers. You need to break down your boxes. Use post-consumer. Those are the only three do's that are ever that I see listed on site so and those are very simple. Very simple I feel like. I mean there's many other reasons why deforestation you know we love our habitats. Extinction is a big problem right now. I think it was I saw the other day 60% of species are actually deteriorating and they're gone now and extinct because of the fact that we just keep destroying their environments to create stuff for us that we really don't need. So you know we've gone through hundreds of millions of tons worth of recycling and sold it to China actually and that has now stopped and I know you have a little bit of insight on this too. Yeah but not in Vermont it's in California. The company Replanet owns 280 recycling centers and they shut them all down and then there's other recycling centers that have been shut down in California due to the fact that China stopped buying and reselling their products and also the mislabeling that's been going on over there. I believe there is like chemicals too that we're being. Yeah it's PET. It's in the bottles that were being deposited and they stopped that as well. Also 750 people lost their jobs because they shut down all those centers. The universal recycling law I believe not many people know about too and it happened in 2012 it banned three major materials from our bins which is also helping reduce pollution and that would be leaf and yard debris, it would be food scraps and all recyclable materials. So I feel like we're doing the necessary steps in order to help our environment but there's still so much more that can be done. Yeah I kind of agree I mean when we did our project about recycling when we were able to go out on the streets of Winooski and ask people what they do to help benefit the environment actually we've got a lot of really nice answers about what people try to do which I personally thought not a lot of people would be interested in recycling or have like super cool facts about it but a lot of people say they try to compost they always try to recycle so I just thought me personally that was kind of interesting that we were able to go and do that. And when we recycle and we use those post-consumer used materials it actually uses less energy so we're conserving energy by recycling and using post-consumer used materials so that's a cool little fact that I learned. Also the United States Environmental Protection Agency has like record of all of the amount of compostables and recycling things that have been recycled and they weighed them and it's all online for us to see but it's not where we want it to be and it could be better if more people were investing I mean just in Vermont there's 20 different businesses for like recycling and composting but it's not it's not like enough I mean it could be there could be more but... So what happens when you mislabel recycle like recycling bins and trash? When people throw away recycled material that could be reused and then they recycle trash that could be used for composting and it makes it makes the process longer for the biodegradables to break down and just makes it a longer process than it should be. So the government also helps to protect the environment. In Vermont we have the Department of Environmental Conservation and their mission is to clean and clear all the potential environmental discrepancies that occur in the state. So can I ask in case it was needed how do you report an environmental violation specifically in Vermont? So if you go to their page online and there are actually two ways to do it and one is by submitting a complaint online you just go to the link that they have there and you fill out all like a form where you report the discrepancy or the violation that you see or that you are actually like doing or you can also call them to their office and during regular business hours when a spill occurs you have to report them immediately. It's kind of like an emergency and there is a line that is open 24 hours for anyone that needs to report a spill or anything like that. Well that's beneficial for everyone to know. About your project. Yeah we can kind of switch gears because my project is definitely a little bit different than theirs because it has to do more about the environment. The project I decided to do was on special education which is very different from what they've all researched but I don't know I just thought it was something that I was really interested in and I decided to research. Question then how much is spent on special education in Vermont each year? So in Vermont per student right now they are spending $21,000 where on average the cost per student is $15,000 so that is a little bit way over what they should be spending so that just kind of raises the question on whether or not they are spending too much or too little on special education because again it varies from school to school and community to community so it's just based on students needs. So there is this formula on the Vermont Agency of Education which I kind of thought was really interesting. So it's this formula where you can go and input all your community or your school's information and that allows you to kind of get a range for the budget that you should be spending where you don't have to take away money from other clubs or activities or sports and you don't have to be putting more of that money into that. So I just thought it was kind of interesting just because you never really know how much you should be spending on some special education and it's hard because there are students that really need some of the resources that they've been given so it's just something to think about I think to really see where the money should be putting it into. Well I think that will be it for today. I thank you for watching us from CCB students. Goodbye. Do you consider yourself environmentally conscious? For the most part I think I do, yeah. In what ways do you contribute to helping the environment? I recycle. I compost. I ride my bike to work at least once a week, twice a week when I can. Would you buy something that used recycled materials? Yeah I think depending on the quality of it for sure. Do you consider yourself environmentally conscious? Yes. Do you believe population has an effect on recycling? It has an effect on the environment. I don't know if it has an effect on recycling. Do you consider yourself environmentally conscious? Yes. In what ways do you contribute to helping the environment? I literally will go through trash and sort trash from recycling. I don't compost, she gives me a hard time. Do you consider yourself environmentally conscious? Yes and no. I try but I'm lazy. In what ways do you contribute to the environment? Well I recycle. I don't buy from places that I know are bad for the environment and also I'm vegan. Would you buy something that used recycled materials? I try to buy things that are recycled materials. Why do you think that's important? Less waste in the world is better and if you have more stuff that's made out of recycled materials it's more accessible to people to buy and if you have more of a demand for it they'll just produce more and at some point if things go well everything will just be recycled. Do you believe that population has an effect on how much people recycle? It definitely does. Population has an effect on the environment itself as well. There have been proven things where because of the population the environment has gone south and so if more people recycle that will be better for the environment but the more people there are the less people there are going to be like the more people there are the people who don't recycle are going to grow as well as people who do recycle. Do you feel that recycling has become more of a chore rather than doing it because it's good for the environment? No, I just forget what's recyclable and what's not so I tend to throw away something that's recyclable but if I remember it I'll put it in the recycling bin. Thank you.