It’s 2024 now. Recycling is good for the environment. It can also benefit a community in surprising ways. Mateo Lange, 15, knows this well. On weekends, you’ll find him sorting through glass and plastic bottles and cans in his hometown, where he leads a community recycling program.
Mateo launched the program in 2020. He was in the sixth grade, playing baseball with a baseball team. The team was new and needed money to travel to tournaments (锦标赛). Mateo thought of a plan.
“There were cans and bottles always thrown around the road,” he tells TIME for Kids. These can be collected and exchanged for cash. With his dad’s help, Mateo started a bottle and can drive. It raised $7,500. “We built up so much money in just a few weeks,” he says. “So I said, ‘Why don’t we keep this going as long as we can?’”
Since then, Mateo says, his recycling effort has raised $350,000 and helped at least 50 local youth groups. It has also prevented more than 2 million bottles and cans from littering the roadside and polluting lakes and rivers. “It’s kept our community a lot cleaner,” he says.
In 2023, Mateo was awarded a Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. The award honors kids and teens who are working to help others and protect Planet Earth. “It feels humbling,” Mateo says, when asked about all he’s accomplished with his cleanup effort. “I am happy knowing that all these teams and clubs and kids around the community are benefitting.” Mateo believes everyone can — and should — be of service. “Just do a little bit to help make the world a little bit of a better place,” he says. “Be creative,” he adds. “Have an idea and build on it.”
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