Willing to wear ‘trash’ to spread her message

Teacher dresses to impress on the permanence of plastic waste

WEST HAVEN — Stacey Giaquinto would like to stick a fork in littering around West Haven — just so long as the fork isn’t disposable and plastic.

Giaquinto, a West Haven elementary school teacher for 24 years, has a passion for eliminating litter and reducing the use of singleuse plastics. She said she initially was inspired by a brook that ran beside her family’s property where she grew up, wanting to preserve the water and keep it free of pollution. When visiting that brook with her nephews years later, she said something clicked: she found the final act for her anti-littering children’s book, “Sticky Green Noses Help Save the Brook,” that she published in 2015.

“It’s so important to bring attention and awareness to what’s happening around us,” she said.

However, Giaquinto refused to stop there. The Forest Elementary School teacher has begun implementing lessons about the problems created by pollution and the harmful effects of single-use plastics into her third-grade classroom.

“I’m showing what single-use plastic is doing and how ocean animals are eating it,” she said.

“Straws, plastic bags and plastic bottles are the big killers, but there are other things that make a difference,”

Giaquinto said.

To illustrate the point, Giaquinto created a visual by gluing plastic coffee stoppers, straws, water bottles, bags, cutlery and other single-use items to a sweatshirt. She said the students quickly pick up on her passion.

“The sweatshirt always piques their interest, because they notice the things on the sweatshirt,” she said.

Students also are moved to action outside of the classroom, as well, she said, wanting to educate their relatives.

“Some of them tell on

their parents: they say their dad smokes and throws the cigarette butts on the ground,” she said.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted her plans to pay visits to schools, Giaquinto has visited several classrooms and schools to talk about the importance of reducing consumption and pollution.

“I’ll take a personal day and visit them: I’ve been to Mackrille and Savin Rock and Pagels schools. They’re nice enough to let me in, and I talk to either the whole school or classes,” she said.

The city also is working to address littering and illegal dumping of garbage.

Giaquinto said that, outside of the classroom, she has put effort into beautification efforts around the city — although the community’s energy around doing so can fizzle out in her experience. As a result, Giaquinto said she now is looking to establish an LLC so she can focus more resources on eliminating waste.

“I am trying to create a business where I can educate and put things together, maybe buy things for schools to provide them with what they need,” she said.

Giaquinto said she has a water filter in her classroom; she believes that if more classrooms in the city had water filters, they could cut down on plastic waste. She said founding an LLC is easier than starting a nonprofit, although that’s the model in which she hopes to operate.

“That’s a goal of mine: to make it not a business to make money, but to raise awareness,” she said.

On top of that, Giaquinto hopes she can use the resources from a business to address one of her top pet peeves: instances when there is litter in privatelyowned parking lots in the city.

As a teacher, Giaquinto believes education is one of the most essential components of addressing litter, pollution and blight in the city. She has encouraged her students to think creatively about ways they can effect change — such as writing letters to officials.

Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency endorses the slogan “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” around recycling, Giaquinto hopes to put a heavier emphasis on step one: reducing consumption of plastics.

“I have students tell me they see litter and they ask their families to help pick it up. I hear them telling their families about plastic waste. This is exactly what I want to happen. I feel that being a teacher, I am in the perfect setting,” she said.

“I’m showing what single-use plastic is doing and how ocean animals are eating it. ... Straws, plastic bags and plastic bottles are the big killers, but there are other things that make a difference.”

West Haven elementary school teacher Stacey Giaquinto

Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Forest School third-grade teacher Stacey Giaquinto is photographed on the beach in West Haven on Sept. 29, with a sweatshirt covered with single-use plastics that she wears for class lessons on the topic.