MANILA, Philippines—Recycle your school stuff and learn a thing or two about stewardship.
This was the appeal of Fr. Conegundo Garganta, executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission on Youth of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, to students doing their last-minute preparations for Monday’s school opening.
Garganta also called on parents to encourage their children to recycle old school materials, stressing that this would help instill in the youth the value of stewardship.
“If this becomes an attitude it will help them become responsible [citizens]. If they learn to start with recycling school stuff and maximize the use of resources, the value of being ‘masinop’ (careful or orderly) will be internalized,” said Garganta.
But the priest admitted that some schools are not that supportive of such initiatives.
“Institutional structures should help parents with these initiatives. Like in private schools where students have to buy new sets of notebooks with the name of the school printed on it, will it support the use of recycled notebooks?” said Garganta.
“If parents and institutions would support [recycling], many concrete lessons will be passed on to the students, like saving the environment, creativity and more,” he added.