Environment: Never Too Young

Not eager to inherit a mess made by grownups, the next generation is joining the conservation effort.

Case of the Dirty Dishes

It's lunchtime at Thomasville High School in North Carolina, and most students are thinking about the food piling up on their trays. Not Brian Styers, a 16- year-old honors student. He is thinking about the trays themselves -- and the nondegradable plastic used to make them. Bothered by the fact that school- issued Styrofoam trays, plates and cups were choking the local landfill, Styers and a dozen or so like-minded students began marching through the cafeteria earlier this year carrying reusable dishes brought from home. They were branded "tree huggers" and "crazy," but Styers and his...

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