“There’s so much plastic around Wakeland! It’s a huge problem.”

Chloe Coya is passionate about ramping up efforts to reduce waste and boost recycling. The Wakeland student and Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) member recently sat down with WINTV to tell us how she is getting teens involved in recycling increase a conservation mindset and push towards creating a more robust recycling program. 

“It’s crazy. One day, we just decided that we would collect the garbage from all of our classes and analyze it, and it turned out, only two out of the 50 bottles we collected could be recycled.”

Chloe’s leadership project for FCCLA was fueled by this discovery and she and her friend decided to create Recyclops. Her goal is to recruit Wakeland students and members of the surrounding community to reduce and reconsider plastic packaging.

“We’re a pretty recent youth organization and we help like the community and the schools recycle since a lot of people don’t actually know how to properly recycle and a lot of people just don’t have the time to learn or the will to learn.”

Once Recyclops delivers materials to the Frisco Waste Management Center, they have already cleaned and sorted everything. The material is eventually recycled and repurposed.

 “We help transport and take their recycling as well as if we make any money off of it, then we donate it back to the school. We take the recycling [materials] to the Frisco Waste Management Center.” To get involved with the organization, students can reach out to Recyclops via Instagram messenger @recyclops.eco

The simple act of recycling can help make a huge impact. Chloe reminds us that a common misconception is that if a package has a recycling logo on it, it means it’s recyclable.

“More often than not, it’s mostly the numbers one and two that are recyclable.”