CHARMAINE: I think the first thing teachers would think is, “Oh my gosh, where does she find the time?”

We just found these bottles in the trash can and they’re going to put them in the bottle bin. Do you want to put those things in the bottle bin?

We’re actually here at Castle Heights Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, and today we’re having school beautification and an e-waste drive.

Only CRV goes in that bin because we can actually get money for it.

My name is Charmaine Colina. I teach second grade. I love it.

About seven years ago, I thought I liked what I did. It was always working with children. I worked with different entertainment companies in the marketing of children’s cartoons and children’s consumer products. But one day, as I was stuck in traffic on the 101, I was listening to a teacher who was being interviewed…

TEACHER: …and plastic is a really bad thing.
INTERVIEWER: I’m sure you’re really proud of them…

CHARMAINE: …who had taken her students to Cabrillo beach, and they were doing a beach cleanup and they were interviewing these children. And when I heard these children’s voices about – you know we’re cleaning up the beach…

YOUNG GIRL: “We’re picking up trash with our class today.”
OLDER GIRL: “Plastic bags are really bad for the sea animals because they think it’s food.”
BOY: “…or it could get wrapped around their neck…”

CHARMAINE: …because it hurts the animals when they eat the plastic bags, and we have to keep the water clean, it clicked to me. Here I am, on the 101, polluting the air, doing this crazy commute. I need to be doing what that teacher is doing. So, I got the ball rolling.

I left the entertainment industry, I became a teacher, and I thought the way to really make a difference – to get people involved with helping the environment – was through young people. Because adults, we’re a little bit stuck in our ways, and children have this wonderful way of making adults feel a little bit guilty about what they’re doing in a nice way. And so I think it gives people a reality check when their children are telling them, “Mommy, you should put that in the recycle bin.”

When I got to this school, I asked, “Do they have recycle bins?” No recycle bins. That was a shock to me, because I thought so much waste is generated at schools as far as paper, cardboard, things we do use day to day that can be recycled. So for a school to not have a recycling program in place, that was a surprise.

Then a year ago, we got the support of a new administration – very supportive of our environmental efforts – we became part of the blue bin recycling program for all schools in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). So that got the ball rolling.