Manteca High is going green.

So says David Torres, who is the school’s Junior Reserved Training Corp instructor.

“We’re (building) with recycled plastic bottles,” he said. “But green is also in our school colors.”

JROTC and Sam Dolson’s wood shop classes were involved in last Saturday’s Green Apple Day of Service. They’re collaborating to build a green house, using recycled plastic bottles.

“It’s still a work in progress,” said Torres, who fell way short in two-liter and 16-ounce bottles.

Thus far, the super structure frame as put together by the wood shop classes is in place sans the walls, gables and door.

Wood shop also provided the bamboo canes for this endeavor that got rolling last week with Principal Frank Gonzales sending out an e-mail memo.

“We are kicking off our recycling program here and I greatly appreciate your patience with everything that is going on with it. Please make students aware that we want to reduce our waste on campus and recycle,” he said.

The U.S., for example, goes through 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, with only one of four people recycling, according to statistics provided by the Green Cup Recycle Challenge.

Plastic bottles could also help Manteca High complete the greenhouse. Needed are 1,500 plastic bottles, with the large two liter ones – they’ll be cleaned, cut, and threaded through one of the bamboo canes – being used for the walls and smaller 16 ounce bottles to fill out the gables and door.

“The (donation of) bottles are slowly coming in,” said Torres said.

As for the color of the plastic bottles, he added that it doesn’t matter. “We’re not picky – it’ll look mosaic once done,” Torres said.

The school Ag Department will benefit from the finished product located not too far from the stadium. Flowers and vegetables will be able to grow inside the greenhouse.

MHS has a history of using its on-campus resources.

For example, the art classes under Kirt Giovannoni painted murals to spruce up the school since the mid 1990s. Today, over 200 murals make up the campus art museun.

Dolson’s Architectural Design class redesigned the outdoor cafeteria quad area not too long ago.

Donations of plastic bottles can be made to the school by contacting Torres at (209) 825-3143.