10News honors Russell Levan for designing and developing a complete recycling program at the Paul Ecke Central Elementary School. Levan not only initiated the recycling program as he has contributed to the education of the students by teaching them the process and importance of recycling.

Levan’s contribution is entirely on a voluntary basis. His dedication to the program includes spending a couple of days a week modifying and monitoring the daily recycling of the new cardboard lunch trays he implemented at the school. For the past 20 years, the school district used only Styrofoam lunch trays but with Russell’s hard work, he convinced the school district to use cardboard lunch trays instead. Additionally, his program has encouraged more recycling to take place not only in the classroom as more recycling efforts have been made in the school’s administrative office and lunch area.

The lives of the students, teachers and parents have changed as they have begun to take pride in the contribution they are making on a daily basis. Every family in the school has been touched because of the environmental awareness being spread to their homes. In addition, the school is benefiting from cash earned by recycling bottles and cans as the money goes to send the less fortunate students to a sixth grade camp.

Levan is currently in the process of implementing new projects at other local San Diego schools. He plans on teaching the school how to make compost from the food waste in the 2007-2008 school year and educating other schools in the district to improve their recycling efforts.