Recycling is good for the environment. It can also 1 a community in surprising ways. Mateo Lange, 15, knows this well. On weekends, you’ll find him dealing with glass and plastic bottles and cans in his hometown, where he leads a community recycling 2 .
Mateo started the program in 2020. He was in the sixth grade, playing baseball with a baseball team. The team was new and needed 3 to travel to tournaments (锦标赛). Mateo thought of a plan.
“There were cans and 4 always thrown around the road,” he says. These can be collected and exchanged for cash. With his dad’s help, Mateo started a bottle and can drive. It 5 $7,500. “We raised so much money in just a few weeks,” he says. “So I said, ‘Why don’t we keep this going 6 we can?’”
Since then, Mateo says, his recycling effort has raised $350,000 and helped at least 50 local youth groups. It has also 7 more than 2 million bottles and cans from littering the roadside and polluting lakes and rivers. “It’s kept our community a lot 8 ,” he says.
In 2023, Mateo was awarded a Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. The award honors kids and 9 who are working to help others and protect Planet Earth. “I am happy knowing that all these teams and clubs and kids around the 10 are benefitting,” Mateo says. He 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,” Mateo says.
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