By Erin Reynolds

Every Wednesday, room C200 is filled to the brim with students eager to make our school greener. The energy and enthusiasm in the room is palpable, the noise level rising swiftly.

Then science teacher Mrs. Lotti steps to the front of room and everyone falls silent. Mrs. Lotti, the advisor of Environmental Club, or E-Club, is a kind and enthusiastic chemistry teacher. After introducing the club leaders and summarizing e-clubs plans, Mrs. Lotti unveils a special reward for consistent club members. At the end of the year, e-club is going on a whale-watch!

However, the trip must be well-earned. E-Club has ambitious plans to expand recycling to include bottles and plastics.

Mrs. Lotti feels that Westborough is somewhat behind in recycling, “We could be doing so much more.”

Mrs. Lotti wants to establish a more consistent and efficient way to get the recycling off campus. Last year students had to drive the bottle recycling to the dump themselves. Currently, recycling takes a lot of E-Club’s time, Mrs. Lotti wants to make the recycling process efficient so students have more time to do other projects.

Another goal of E-Club is to raise awareness and involve the younger schools. E-Club plans to do an activity at the end of the year with the middle school students, possibly involving tie-dye.

Mrs. Lotti hopes this will increase club membership, and that new freshmen will not be afraid to join E-Club and get involved. In order to do projects, E-Club has to fundraise. In the past E-Club has done bottle and can drives. E-Club always has a booth at the Homecoming Festival.

This year E-Club sold dirt cups, energy efficient light bulbs, cookies, stickers, and did tie-dye. Shirts with the E-Club logo and the phrase ‘Rangers are tree-huggers too’ were available for purchase. Hopefully these shirts will be available at future events.

            Mrs. Lotti believes preserving the planet is important because we only have one planet with limited resources, and we need to share those resources.

If you want to join E-club, simply go to room C200 next Wednesday. Contact Nikki Benoit (President), Allie Arpante (Vice President), Brigid Bowser (treasurer), or Anna Petrunich (secretary) if you want more information. Join E-Club and show the world that Rangers are tree-huggers too!