Announcing CVSan's High School Scholarship Winner

Castro Valley Sanitary District (CVSan) is pleased to announce the winner of the 2015/16 CVSan Environmental Leader in Waste Reduction Scholarship: Emily Liang. Liang will receive a $500 cash scholarship.

She received a certificate of recognition at CVSan’s Board of Directors meeting June 14, 2016. Liang demonstrated her environmental leadership by serving as President of the Smart Energy Club at Castro Valley High School. Liang’s scholarship essay described becoming motivated to be an environmental leader after attending her school’s waste audit:

If everyone would walk two more steps to the right or to the left and throw their lunch trays or unfinished food into the compost bins that are set out instead of the trash, we could prevent a lot of methane from entering our fragile atmosphere.

After [the waste audit], I started to become more aware of where I threw my trash, which led me to realize that I don’t really know which bins some of my trash goes in. That made me wonder if this was the case for all my other classmates, because of this I started focusing on creating presentations that educated the Smart Energy Club members about the power of recycling and composting and how to correctly compost and recycle. Not only that, but when I spot someone not sorting their trash, or sorting it wrong, I would help assist and educate them. With all the knowledge I have gained since the beginning of my journey, I have been inspired to help other people understand the impact we have on the environment.

This is the third year CVSan has offered the scholarship to high school seniors. The scholarship is a way to recognize those students who are taking action and encouraging environmental awareness through waste reduction within their school and community.