(A report by Sr. Farah Noorani and Sr. Debbie Anwar)

 

The Earth is green and beautiful, and Allah has appointed you his stewards over it. (Hadith) 

 

Our Brownie Girl Scouts (2nd & 3rd graders) and (Special Helper Zayd) at Al-Amal School, have been busy learning about recycling and taking care of our environment for the past few months. They have learned how it is our duty, as Muslims, to help take care of the Earth.  Our Girl Scouts have been trying to encourage their classmates, teachers, and parents to recycle at school and at home by teaching them what they have learned.

   

Al-Amal Brownie Girl Scouts

As part of this effort, and to get students into the habit of recycling, our Girl Scout Troop started an Elementary School Recycling Challenge. Currently at Al Amal School, we are throwing away used paper in the trash. By shifting our habits to recycling instead, our goal is to help the school become more environmentally conscious and to ultimately save our earth.

By recycling 1 ton (2000 lbs.) of paper, about 17 trees can be saved! Instead of going into a landfill, this recycled paper can be made into other things, like more paper, which would mean less trees would be needed for this purpose. Imagine how many trees we could be saving by recycling the paper from our classrooms instead of throwing it away!

The Brownie Girl Scouts presented this idea to each of the Elementary classes and explained the benefits of recycling paper and what can be made from recycled paper. Anoka County Waste Management Services provided pencils and activity books (all made from recycled paper) for all of the students. At the end of each week, some of the girls and leaders go to each classroom, collect the paper, and weigh it. It is then dumped in the recycling dumpster outside to be picked up by Allied Waste, Al-Amal's garbage/ recycling service. Our goal was to collect enough paper to save at least one tree ( about 125 lbs.)

Even though this project only officially started two weeks ago, we have been collecting recycling from 3B for the past 5 weeks. In all, we've collected 240 pounds of paper to be recycled. 190 pounds was just from the last two weeks! That is almost two trees, well beyond our goal, Masha'Allah! ( The chart showing how much paper we recycled is on the wall outside of the Musallah. Please stop by to see how we're doing.) 



This project only included paper collection, but our ultimate goal is to have all students and staff recycling paper, plastic, aluminum cans, and glass within the next school year, insha'Allah.

Thank you to the teachers, custodial staff, and administrative staff for supporting this project. Also special thanks should go our Girl Scouts and Al-Amal students. I'm sure we can all agree that the children are our future and often times can teach us important lessons. If we all work together, recycling will become a common practice at Al-Amal and in our community, insha'Allah.

For more information on recycling, please visit these websites

Islam and the environment
Islamic magazine on environment
Fridley recycling program
Blaine recycling program
Minneapolis recycling program