Makena Brown, grade 8, has a plan to help keep the planet healthy and make money, too. Makena collects all of her family’s recyclables and stores them in the back yard. About once a month, she and her family load up the car with the many bags of bottles and cans and take them to the local recycling center. Because it’s her project, Makena gets to keep the money paid by the recycling center for the aluminum, plastic and glass. "Makena is the chief of our recycling plant," says Mr. Brown proudly. "She’s the recycling queen."

"The money is the number one thing that’s in my mind," says Makena. "I’m like, that’s great! And in the back of my mind I know that this is helping the environment, [reducing] pollution, and helping the earth to get better step by step." With her recycling money, Makena is helping to pay her mom back for her new computer.

Ask a little more about Makena’s interest in protecting the environment, and you’ll find that she’s a fountain of knowledge. For example, she explains that more water is used to make plastic water bottles than can be contained by the bottles after they’re made. She’s also especially interested in renewable energy. Her eyes light up when she talks about San Francisco’s proposal to get electricity from tidal power generators.

It’s been about a year now that the Brown family has been saving their recyclables for Makena’s recycling project. Makena’s grandparents have also started to save their recyclables to contribute to the Brown family’s recycling program. "We end up with a big pile of bottles and cans on the side of the house," everyone chuckles. "We can’t walk past until we clean it up."

In addition to supporting Makena’s recycling project, her parents and her younger sister, Ashley, all have their own ways of helping the environment. These include choosing environmentally friendly cleaning products and using cloth shopping bags.

Ashley says, "we watched a show on Oprah and it was ‘Green Day’ and she gave organic cotton bags that help the environment to everybody in the audience."

"So when you go to the grocery store," she says cheerfully in unison with her mom, "and they ask ‘paper or plastic?’ you can say neither because you have your own bags."

It was Makena’s school that gave her the interest to pursue her recycling business. "It actually started last year when I learned about global warming," recalls Makena. "In 7th grade, we did a project on global warming. Each group was assigned to do something. There were groups for food, recycling, pesticides, and all these things about global warming. It was called the Green Fair. And I learned about recycling and how much litter is on the side of the roads. And I was like, that’s a great way to get money and help the environment."

Mr. Brown adds that he has taken Makena to see a wetland preservation project in which he is involved with the hope that it would interest his daughter in environmental protection.

What’s the family’s least favorite part of delivering their recyclables to the recycling center? "The smell," everyone says together, laughing. "It’s pretty bad."

Makena and Ashley explain, "When we go, we do not want to catch the germs and the stickiness on our hands so we wear latex gloves."

With her recycling business rolling along, I wondered if Makena would like it if companies stopped producing plastic bottles, even if having fewer bottles to recycle might put a hole in her profits. "I would," she said, "because then we’d be saving the water and it would be healthier for the planet. It would be another step to stop global warming." Spoken like a conscientious and environmentally responsible businessperson.

For people Makena’s age interested in starting an at-home recycling project, Makena has some advise. "The only thing," she says, "is just to keep your mind on it and help your family know and make rules. I told my family that if they’re done with a bottle or can, they could just put it on the counter. I put it in a bag and take it out to the yard. Keep your family informed. And the other thing is just try to get other people involved because you’re going to get money for it and you’re also helping the environment."