Cyril Summerfield, a student at Marshall Middle School, demonstrates the waste detector he designed to help sort trash.
Cyril Summerfield had been volunteering to help custodians sort waste in the cafeteria after lunch at General Marshall Middle School. The school, like the district as a whole, is committed to “It gets it wrong like an eighth of the time, so I have to go, 'No, that’s recycling,’ and then it will think about it for a second," he said."And then I do that a few more times and it will get it right."Cyril demonstrated how the program works by holding up different items to a webcam. He held up a lemon and the program correctly identified it as “compost.” When the program identifies waste incorrectly, he corrects it, so the program gets it right next time.
“We really have to make sure kids are putting the right things into the right bins so we don’t have tons of waste going into the landfill,” he said. “In fact, when compost goes into the landfill it releases methane, which is a worse greenhouse gas than what is coming out of your car.”Smith said she was"delighted" to see the students want to help solve the trash problem.