Students recycle notebooks to save on school expenses

MANILA, Philippines - High school seniors at a local high school busied themselves last week recycling notebooks for use in the coming schoolyear.

They took the unused pages from old notebooks, sewed them up, and added a nice cover to make a brand new notebook.

High school students make new notebooks out of old ones to save on school expenses.

To streamline the operation, the students, all from Baesa High School in Caloocan City, have grouped themselves and assigned specific tasks to each one.

"Nag-cluster po kami. May taga-tanggal ng tahi, taga-bilang, taga-tahi at taga-balot," said Gerald Yambot, a student at the said school.

The hardest part of the task is sewing the pages, the students said. "Di na kasi pare-pareho ang butas," explained Dianne Rose Fernandez, also a student at Baesa High School.

But the new notebooks are not just for these students who made them. They were given away to incoming students of the school last Friday, the last day of Brigada Eskwela, the weeklong program of the Department of Education where teachers, parents and students join hands to clean up and prepare schools for the schoolyear opening in June

"Makakatulong pa kami sa mga magulang na hirap din sa budget, said Gerald.

"Makakatulong sa mga magulang nila," added Corazon San Luis, assistant principal of Baesa High School.

Although the Department of Trade and Industry is keeping tabs on the prices of school supplies, many parents are students are looking for ways to save further on school expenses. Recycling old school supplies is one such step.

The participants of the project plan to make this an annual program which they hope will be adopted by schools throughout the country.