Using a hot-glue gun, 13-year-old Geneva Strauss-Wise attached aluminum “petals” to the scissored-off bottom of a soda can on a recent afternoon.

Behind her, empty plastic juice bottles and yogurt tubs littered the floor of a small office room at reSource’s headquarters near downtown Bend.

“You know what we should do? Cut long strips of aluminum (for flower stems),” Geneva said to her classmates, Martha Campbell, 12, and Jayme Gradwohl, 13.

The trio, all Bend residents and students at Rimrock Expeditionary Alternative Learning Middle School, are part of a group of nine students assembling a “tree” out of trash and recyclable materials. The tree is intended to raise people’s awareness about waste and teach them what can and cannot be recycled, the students said.

Students from the Bend charter school have been working with several local environmental groups on community service projects, once a week. ReSource, a nonprofit, works with businesses, consumers and youth to minimize waste and pollution.

Geneva, Martha and Jayme explained that they were creating two “branches” for the tree, one from plastic and the other from tin and aluminum, complete with flowers and vines.

Another small group was working on a “branch” using discarded magazines and newspaper, and a third group was assembling a cardboard trunk that will have plastic toys and non-recyclable items attached to it.

“The base is going to be plastics and things that can’t be recycled, and it will go into (branches made of) things that can be recycled, like it’s flourishing into something new,” Geneva said of the tree.

A metal frame inside the tree will hold everything together. The tree should be complete around the first week of March, according to reSource Youth Education Coordinator Jackie Wilson.

Field trip

The students said they took a trip to Bend’s Knott Landfill and learned about recycling and decomposition before collecting material for the tree.

Keenan Branch, 14, who helped assemble the branch out of paper, said he was surprised by some of the things people had dumped at the landfill.

“We saw about four bikes that totally worked,” the Bend teen said. “(And) we saw a bag of stuffed animals and soccer balls that could be given to a family or Goodwill.”

Keenan said that the project also made him think about the things he throws away.

“A lot of stuff doesn’t decompose, like plastic water bottles, and I’ve probably used hundreds (of bottles), if not thousands,” he said.

He said he wants the tree to be displayed in as many places as possible once it is complete. Locations have not yet been determined.

“It’ll show people what they can recycle, what they can make out of stuff they throw away every day — and it’ll be cool to see,” Keenan said.

Jayme had a similar view.

“It’s amazing how much we’ve been able to make out of recyclables,” she said, as she used a pair of scissors to turn a soda can into another blossom.

“I thought (the project) was kind of cool because I knew we would try to raise awareness about the waste we produce,” she said.

Jayme said she was surprised to see the amount of cardboard people dumped at the landfill.

Martha added, “It’s kind of sad, because it seems like nobody knows what to recycle.”

She said she was impressed by the progress the group had made on the tree.

“When it was just bottles on the floor, (I thought,) ‘How is it ever going to become anything?’” Martha said. “But it’s becoming something.”

Max Pintar, 12, of Bend, said he was looking forward to seeing the finished tree. He also worked on the branch made of paper.

“In the end, (it’s) going to be really creative and colorful,” he said.