This is a guest post by Jason Mayeda, student and Action Team Member at West High School in Torrance, CA. 

In the past few years, Torrance has been behind in starting its Green Waste Program. It was one of the few cities in the South Bay without one. News of the La Puente landfills closing made this problem even worse. However, through meetings with our good friend, Allison Sherman, we were able to find out ways we could help the Green Waste Program pass at the City Council meeting at the end of January.

We planned to create a survey for Torrance residents regarding their willingness to pay for the new program. Much research had to go into this, as we needed to seem “official”, not just something a few kids put together a night before a deadline (I have been guilty of this for many school projects over the years). And what would a survey be without a prize? Free stuff? Who doesn’t like free stuff? One lucky random survey participant will receive a free bicycle! Promoting good health and a greener lifestyle!

Next it was time to bring the survey to the public. We were going to tie in our survey with our E-Waste event that happened to be in January as well. Much work went into advertising the E-Waste drive, so we thought, “Well, we already have the people there in the mindset of recycling, why not tell them about our survey too?”. Emphasis was put on the “free bike” part. General members would pass flyers out at the E-Waste drive about the purpose of the survey, where to take it, and most importantly, the free bike. I recall talking about the survey to a mother with her two young kids in the back seat, who all seemed disinterested in what I had to say. However, when I mentioned the words “free” and “bike”, they perked up and commanded their mom to take the survey flyer from me.

We also provided incentive for our general members who wanted to advertise during winter break. We gave each member five flyers (the same ones handed out at E-Waste a month later) to put up around the city. If a board member saw it, or if another member saw it and took a picture, the member who put up the poster would get a few points for it.

After the advertising, we had a good 220 survey participants (who were Torrance residents). Data was extracted from the survey and it became clear that Torrance residents were overall in agreement with a Green Waste Program along with higher waste fees. This information was brought to the City Council by our President, Andy Park, and VP, Daehee Kim. After a few more speeches from people for and against the programs and various agendas, we heard the good news that Green Waste was approved! About two months later I received my Green Waste bin, and my family and I took no time to start putting it to good use. The experience of this project has taught us that you can’t wait for things to happen on their own. If you want your opinion to be heard you need to get it out there.