The Hazardous Waste Management Program envisions a Puget Sound region free of toxic exposures. As we celebrate International Youth Day (August 12), it’s important to recognize how empowering younger generations today ensures they will lead the charge in achieving that vision for the future. 

That’s why the Haz Waste Program formed an educational partnership with Cleveland High School in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. A racially diverse and multilingual community, Beacon Hill consistently faces significant environmental disparities. This partnership helped educate more than 60 students about the impacts of hazardous waste on their community, and it challenged them to come up with ways they can mitigate those impacts.

Each year, 10th-grade students at Cleveland High School develop a year-end project dedicated to an environmental health issue. Over five weeks, they work in groups to identify and research an issue, propose a solution, and create a project to address it.

Through this annual project, our staff introduced students to the issue of hazardous waste. With in-class instruction and a field trip to the South Seattle Household Hazardous Waste facility, CHS students made connections between real-world issues around hazardous materials in their community and the resources available to manage and dispose of hazardous waste.  

Building on their knowledge, the students proposed campaigns to build awareness about topics like air quality, safer cleaning, and hazardous waste disposal. Our staff supported students in creating these campaigns by offering a "Communications 101" workshop and holding office hours to guide students in creating social media and video content. Students not only learned about hazardous waste issues; they became active contributors to solutions for environmental and public health issues while learning new, career-forward skills.

At the end of the project, eight groups designed social media and video content around topics including air quality in Beacon Hill, safer cleaning in schools, promoting safer cosmetics, growing a green garden without hazardous materials, keeping pollutants out of waterways, safer battery disposal, and community health impacts of hazardous waste products. Follow our Program’s Facebook page to see some of this content. 

Throughout this collaboration with the Haz Waste Program and Cleveland High School, students expressed appreciation for the support and awe at how widespread hazardous products are in our region and world. But with their new knowledge, skills, and interest, these students are prepared to be model stewards of our public health and environment. When we do achieve our vision of a toxic-free Puget Sound region, it’ll be these burgeoning stars who lead the way.