Murray, NEB- Dana Stahl, executive director of Keep Cass County Beautiful, has been passionate about sustainability since her teens. She’s been working with the school recycling program for four years now and now she’s sharing her information about sustainability.

Stahl grew up in Northern Mich., where she started collecting bottles and cans at a young age so she could have some spending money. In Mich., they have a 10-cent bottle refund so she thought she could make a good amount of money collecting cans. Stahl continued her collecting through college which paid for her gas money to and from the university. The main impetus was when she was in an environmental college class, it helped her gain knowledge of the problems the world is facing like the plastic pollution problem. She was angry and shocked because people weren’t taking better care of the Earth. Since then, she devoted her life to educating others about this issue and encouraging others to join the movement.

Four years ago, Stahl started partnering with the school librarian at Conestoga Elementary and she would visit the school several times a year to give the students environmental lessons. Stahl soon realized that the elementary school had no recycling program and she believed it was important to have a recycling program that students could participate in. The organization centered around sustainability, Keep Cass County Beautiful, purchased recycling bins for the school and the organization has been committed to collecting recycling at Conestoga Elementary. Keep Cass County Beautiful has recycled around 30,000 pounds in the past few years. Last year, Mrs. Kennebeck’s agriculture class reached out to Stahl about starting a recycling program at the Conestoga High School and she guided them to apply for their grant to get recycling bins and she helped them start a proper recycling procedure. Keep Cass County Beautiful collects from the high school now and gives tips on how to make the program successful.

Stahl believes there are many changes schools can adopt to become more sustainable. She believes that any disposable item that can be eliminated from use is a more green option. Additional policies the school could adopt would be to increase recycling by talking to all of the staff and the students about proper procedures and making sure bins are in the right areas. “One important procedure the school already has in place is using reusable lunch trays and silverware for school lunches. This cuts down on thousands of pounds of single-use plastics and styrofoam every year”, says Stahl.

When Stahl visits the school, she still sees a lot of recycling ending up in trash bins. Another way she believes the school could be more sustainable is by starting a composting program. “Composting has huge environmental benefits, the school could divert all their food waste into composting to help produce natural fertilizer and cut down on landfill waste”, Stahl describes.

She has also noticed that at the high school, trash liners are changed daily even when there is very little to no trash in the bag. “Changing this procedure to empty trash bins into a larger bin instead of using dozens of trash bags every day would help reduce plastic waste as well. Heating and cooling also use large amounts of energy, another way to cut down on energy use is to turn up the thermostat 1-2 degrees in summer months and turn it down during winter months”, Stahl mentions. Dana Stahl has dedicated her life to making the world a better place through sustainability and education. “Even that small of an amount makes a huge difference on energy consumption.” – Dana Stahl