If you saw a red, orange, or yellow popsicle in the sticky hands of a student at lunch last week, chances are, they got it in exchange for their trash — or more accurately, their compost.

With the goals of teaching students how to sort through their trash and improving the community’s environment, the MVHS Green Team club placed two compost bins around campus, in the Main Quad and Science Quad.

“In some science classrooms, they have compost bins, but they don’t actually get put into compost, they get put in the landfill,” Green Team president Addy Kopp said. “So, I asked Daniella Quiñones, an assistant principal, and she said that we did have a composting bin, but that they were only used for the pizza boxes.”

That sparked an idea in Kopp: to expand the usage of the scarcely-touched compost bin. And that’s exactly what the club did. After four months of planning and preparing, Green Team members were finally able to put their ideas into action, starting off with the two widely successful bins.

According to Kopp, when food waste goes into the landfill, it’s dropped under other categories of trash and traps methane. However, when it’s disposed of properly — through composting — it can be put back into the earth as a carbon absorber.

“Composting is just one way in which we can all reduce our carbon footprint,” said Daniella Quiñones, an Assistant Principal who worked with the club to implement the compost bins. “If we produce less waste and compost more, we can positively and directly impact global warming.”

The club’s winnings came out to be around thirty gallons each day, on average, but soared above on days when it handed out the crowd-pleasing incentive of ice cream or popsicles, according to Green Team Vice-president Mia Delgo.

But it’s not over yet. The club plans to add more bins in following months. Delgo said the club’s “final goal” is to instate one compost bin beside every trash can on campus. And as their goals grow, so does their team — Green Team’s current efforts have inspired others to join the cause.

“More people have been getting involved with the Green Team because of our recent presence on campus,” Delgo said. “This is building a larger and more extensive community so that we can eventually accomplish all our goals.”