Jiin Yun was in second grade when she first noticed that even many well-meaning folks aren’t great at recycling.
One of her classmates blew his nose, then threw the used tissue into the recycling bin at their Irvine school. He surely thought he was doing a good thing. But even then, Yun knew products like facial tissues, paper towels and napkins — or any soiled paper, for that matter — can’t be recycled.
Flash forward a decade, and Yun, at the wise age of 16, has authored a children’s book about recycling. The senior at Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana also developed an app, with help from her older sister, that offers details on whether and how to recycle more than 500 common items. And she launched a nonprofit called The Recycling Dictionary, which holds workshops across Orange County to educate younger students about smart recycling practices.
Recycling has gotten a bit of a bad rap in recent years, Yun acknowledged, as more studies come out about the low success rate of many programs. But while recycling alone won’t curb climate change, done right, Yun insists it’s still a simple way to reduce landfill waste and planet-warming emissions that come from rotting items.
Now other teens who see the value in Yun’s work plan to build on her example, with chapters of The Recycling Dictionary established in other parts of Orange County and more in the works in Northern California and on the East Coast.
Expanding wasn’t even on Yun’s radar when she first started this effort a couple years ago. Today, she hopes it’s just the beginning.
“Branching this out nationwide and getting the message out there is my biggest dream for the organization,” Yun said. “I never envisioned it, but I’m really glad that it’s starting to work out.”
While Yun had that lightbulb moment in second grade, she said it was really in middle school, when she joined her school’s Science Olympiad team, that she developed a passion for environmental…
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