Cross club takes out the trash. The banks of the Mill River are now that much cleaner — thanks to a small but mighty group of Wilbur Cross Environmental Club members who braved the cold to clean up eight full bags’ worth of trash.Those nine Cross high school students walked to an East Rock stretch of the Mill River last Friday to pick up everything from construction debris to plastic bottles. They spent nearly two hours after school pulling junk out of the river and from its shores. That same group of student leaders are continuing this school year to spearhead a student-led composting and recycling program to reduce waste at the district’s largest high school. The club piloted its composting efforts in the spring of 2023. Before they cleaned up the Mill River area on Friday, Isaac Kleppner, one of the Cross club members, said the area ​“looked like a trash can.” On Monday, the group hosted its first bake sale of the school year to raise money for its partnership with the pedal-powered local composting program Peels & Wheels. The club raised $69 over the course of the bake sale. During the club’s hour-long meeting on Monday, the students took note of the group’s inventory in a first-floor storage closet. They also collected the recyclables accumulated last week in the building’s three teachers lounges. Christopher Van Tassel, a senior at Cross, has been involved in the school’s environmental club since it was reestablished his sophomore year. He said he previously had no experience or much knowledge of sustainability efforts like composting.“It really only interested me once I started to see everything everyone throws away all the time,” he said. He added that while he enjoys helping to improve his school, he wishes there was more support from the district for the student-led work. Van Tassel and other students in the club told this reporter that they’ve put their composting and gardening knowledge to work at home by convincing their families to introduce small-scale compost collection or to regrow gardens from food scraps. Along with Kleppner and Van Tassel, attendees at Monday’s club meetup included Sofia Janiga, junior Manxi Han, and senior Adam Trachten.While some students were taking inventory of the club’s materials, Van Tassel headed to the second floor teachers lounge to collect the recyclables. Kleppner and Han next went outside to wash several of the group’s compost bins. Kleppner noted that in addition to maintaining the school’s sustainability projects, the club also aims to constantly recruit new students to ensure their efforts are kept up long term.In November, the club participated in a panel at Yale University in partnership with the Yale Child Study Center. Kleppner described the visit as a significant opportunity for the club to ​“talk to adults willing to listen.” On Election Day, the group also planted tulips around the school to remain ​“connected on a stressful day.”When asked whether the club’s efforts should remain student-led or should become a district-wide effort where adults perform the work, the Cross students all agreed it should be a hybrid of the two. Van Tassel said it can be frustrating for the group at times. ​“No one [is] stopping us from doing stuff, but no one [is] helping us.” Han said that ​“change doesn’t come easily.” She thinks the district should adopt district-wide composting and recycling programs while also engaging students to lead those programs to foster student accountability and responsibility with real-world problems.Kleppner added that for all students to become more thoughtful about waste, these programs will have to become district-wide because the bandwidth of Cross’s environmental club is limited.One goal the club is working toward is having the school put its compost bins in the lunch room so students can reduce their waste on their own without club members having to stop at every lunch table to collect as many compostable items as possible.The club also hopes to increase its outreach to students by giving more classroom presentations about the importance of composting and recycling. They spoke about how challenging it can be to balance the environmental club alongside all their other student responsibilities in the school band, national honor society, debate club, soccer team, working at Eli Whitney Museum, student council, and more.But, they stressed, the work is worth it.“If we can get engagement up,” Kleppner said, ​“then it could show that this work is everyone’s responsibility.”Students clean compost bins during weekly club after-school meeting. Enviromental club members Sofia Janiga, Manxi Han, Christopher Van Tassel, Isaac Kleppner, and Adam Trachten.