Bel Air High School emerges victorious in the Great Can Clash of 2011.

The event was a recycling competition between Bel Air and C. Milton Wright high schools to see which could collect the most aluminum cans in a month.

The competition was a joint effort between the two schools, the facilities department and the resource conservation manager. The goal was to promote recycling in the schools and communities for environmental awareness.

Each school provided a teacher sponsor and two teams of students. The students of both schools met to organize the event and agree on the rules. The student teams decided that each school would collect aluminum cans from the school and local community and weigh their bounty at the end of the month. The school with the greatest number of cans collected would not only get the recycling proceeds from their collection, but they would get the others school's revenue as well. The facilities department pitched in by sending a truck to pick up the cans and deliver them to the recycling center.

Linn Griffiths, the CMW sponsor and environmental science teacher, said that the students were in charge of organizing the collection process and promoting the idea to their fellow classmates.

"We have some of the most dedicated and conscientious students in our school that really went above and beyond to pull this thing off," Griffiths said.

The students decided to limit the collection of aluminum to only beverage cans so that both schools would have an equal advantage. They also decided to open up the contest to include their communities in an effort to promote responsible recycling habits beyond their school doors.

"There were no losers in this competition; I know that students from both schools successfully energized their school communities to take an active role in recycling," Glenn Hedelson, the BAHS sponsor said.

More than 620 pounds of aluminum were collected by both schools yielding a profit of more than $370. The proceeds from the contest will be used to purchase a water bottle filling station for Bel Air High. The new machine will replace one of the existing water fountains in the school and allow students to fill their reusable water bottles with filtered drinking water.