Student Scholarships
RecycleSmart initiated the student scholarship program in 2015 to inspire and reward student leaders who have made significant contributions to reducing waste at their high schools. Over the past ten years, student leaders from Acalanes High School, Campolindo High School, Miramonte High School, Las Lomas High School, Northgate High School, Monte Vista High School and San Ramon Valley High School have received RecycleSmart scholarships.
The 2025 scholarship application was prominently posted on the RecycleSmart website and distributed to all high schools in the RecycleSmart service area through environmental clubs, leadership classes, science teachers, administration communications and college counselors. Applicants are required to describe how they are contributing to waste prevention and sorting at their schools and/or in the greater central Contra Costa community.
For the 2024-2025 school year, two students stand out as environmental stewards and community educator leaders. RecycleSmart is pleased to acknowledge the achievements of these students with the award of the Waste Reduction Student Scholarship.
Hayley Takeshima – Acalanes High School – $2,000
As an environmental board member for Acalanes leadership community for four years, and its president for the past three, Hayley increased waste prevention awareness and action among her peers, teachers and the administration. She expanded her reach beyond Acalanes High School by participating in the Acalanes Unified High School District Sustainability Committee, interning with the RecycleSmart schools program and EBMUD, hosting an information table at the Sustainable Lafayette Earth Day event, and presenting for the Northern California Recycling Association Zero Waste Schools webinar in April 2025.
Her experience as an environmental steward has deepened her commitment to sustainability. The journey has evolved her leadership style to one where she strives to remove obstacles and provide instructions in order to allow individuals to take ownership instead of dictating actions. Empowered from each small success, Hayley is determined to stay the course, and infuse her passion in every community she joins.
Hayley notes that the most rewarding impact from her waste prevention efforts is the change she has observed in her school’s culture. Today there are fewer piles of trash left unattended after meals, and Hayley has witnessed students pausing to verify the correct bins to use. She has even heard some students repeat lines from the sort education video her board encouraged all teachers to show.
As a waste reduction leader, Hayley first created and implemented an Environmental Action Plan to address post-meal litter and severely contaminated waste bins. This unwarranted behavior required the school to hire an extra custodian to clean up after the students. Creating two presentations, she shared them with the entire student body to highlight the harmful environmental impact of littering and unsorted waste. Plus, she encouraged her peers to appreciate their custodians and take responsibility for their school’s appearance.
Each year she served as a board leader, Hayley added goals to her Environmental Action Plan. Incorporated into the plan was consistent communication with the school administration, custodians, district nutrition services manager, her leadership teacher and RecycleSmart to determine options and methods for waste reduction. Before taking action, she observed student behavior and noticed a need to optimize bin placements and create clearer bin signage for students rushing to class. Her board reinforced waste prevention throughout the year with posters, videos, and engaging activities for students such as: a gently used prom dress donation drive, butterfly raising, paper flower making and campus clean ups.
As a RecycleSmart schools intern, Hayley collaborated with other high school students to assist RecycleSmart and each school community with common waste reduction goals. Most impactful was her co-creation of two videos currently used to train multiple school communities by the RecycleSmart Schools Team. In 2023, she teamed up with a former RecycleSmart scholarship winner, Mary Laska, to create a Sorting 101 video. She volunteered again in the summer of 2024, to create an updated version with Yaowei Li from Monte Vista High School (our other scholarship awardee).
Hayley is a resident of Lafayette. In the fall, she will attend Cal Poly San Luis Obispo as an Electrical Engineering major.
Videos
Hayley summarizes her water prevention efforts in this video
Yaowei Li – Monte Vista High School – $2,000
Yaowei emerged as an environmental leader as the Recycling Officer for the Climate Action Now (CAN) club at Monte Vista High School (MVHS) his junior year, and has continued his waste prevention mission as the President of CAN in 2024-25. He worked closely with Maddy Parks, a 2024 RecycleSmart scholarship winner, as one of four CAN officers. As the club’s founder, Maddy, carefully selected Yaowei as her most trusted successor.
In 2023-24, Yaowei and the CAN officers developed the second initiative for increased waste reduction at MVHS. He was an essential part of the team that directed the school beyond the initial stage of setting up proper sorting infrastructure. To start, Yaowei created a slidedeck and helped present their plans to 300 faculty and staff members, asking for assistance in educating the school community. Their resources included: a customized video on how to sort, large posters, and social media. Additionally, they worked with the school principal and custodians to improve infrastructure on campus. Yaowei designed an improved bin station layout based on the club’s observations of student habits. And, they worked with RecycleSmart to add multiple food share carts to divert more food from the landfill.
Yaowei initially had low expectations for the food share program because Monte Vista has such a large student population (over 2,500!). However, this year he has witnessed a large number of students putting their unwanted school food in the food share bins and is thrilled to know that some food can be re-served.
Especially remarkable, in the spring of 2024, Yaowei led a group of club members in conducting a five-day visual waste audit to help the RecycleSmart Schools Team confirm the volume reported by the district hauler for landfill and recycling – a job not many people would take on! They noted contamination in each container, took pictures and documented the volumes. This audit also informed his club of common sorting mistakes, and where to focus educational efforts. They discovered that the number one item at MVHS that can be diverted from the landfill is paper lunch trays. Yaowei plans to conduct another audit before he graduates to compare year over year results and share his findings with next year’s CAN club officers.
During 2024-25, Yaowei and his officers recruited 81 members who participated in seven campus clean ups, sustaining the mission of community action. They also took on waste prevention projects, such as updating bin sort signage in the fall, and adding toppers to the containers to help the school community understand what goes in each bin. For example, they added the words “food scraps” to the top of the compost sign (see pictures). Another waste reduction project was a “dress-thrifting” reuse event. The CAN club collaborated with the school’s equity chair for homecoming and organized a swap event for dresses and shirts.
Yaowei has reached beyond his school community as a RecycleSmart summer schools intern, collaborating with scholarship awardee Hayley Takeshima to produce a video used throughout Central Contra Costa County for waste sorting education in 2024. Additionally, he joined a small production team in 2025 and spent four months interviewing people and filming a high-production documentary. This film is associated with the Climate Mayor Network, and will be submitted to a national film event in the fall with hopes to empower fellow citizens to add livable planet practices into their lives, making every day earth day.
Yaowei is a resident of Danville and will be studying Civil Engineering at San Jose State University or Biology at UC Davis this fall. He has an exciting decision to make!
Videos and Links
Link to faculty presentation slideshow
@mvclimateactionnow Instagram account