NEWPORT — Fifteen-year-old Deanna Ford, a sophomore at the East Bay campus of the MET school, has never known the experience of recycling at home. She lives in a large apartment complex which is outside the city’s recycling program.

But this week, Deanna is taking a lead in instructing her fellow students and teachers in the details of using the MET school’s recycling bins, the focal point of a new program notable in the way it takes education beyond the classroom and highlights some gaps in local environmental law.

At a kickoff event for “The MET Goes Green” on Monday, Newport’s mayor-elect, Jeanne Marie Napolitano, said “it’s a little embarrassing” that the city doesn’t pick up the school’s trash and the students had to start their own recycling program.

The city’s collection program serves public buildings, but not the MET school — formally, the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center, an alternative high school which operates in quarters leased from the Newport Housing Authority. The collection ordinance excludes any property in which a single owner — like the Housing Authority — operates more than eight units.

That was the bottom line the students received in conversations with city officials. But they figured out another way to establish a recycling program at the school.

“They wouldn’t take no for an answer,” said their mentor, Linda Nilsson, executive director of the Newport-based Environmental Awareness Foundation.

“They learned the way the system works,” she said. They are “making things happen the way they should be happening, involving the community, the government, the school, and business.”

Several months ago, Deanna and nine other students went to see the MET school’s landlord — Jim Reed, executive director of the Housing Authority — seeking his support in starting a recycling program. At the time, the housing agency didn’t have a recycling program either, although Reed was planning to start one. He was receptive. Now, the private firm that serves his agency’s buildings is picking up sorted trash.

Reed has nothing but praise for the results of the students’ efforts so far, but the best is yet to come.

The Environmental Awareness Foundation plans to sponsor them on a trip to Sweden, where they will get a more global perspective on recycling.

The students “might be able to provide good insight into public policy statewide,” Reed said.

Sweden recycles about 80 percent of its trash. Rhode Island households, by comparison, recycle 20 percent.

Thanks to the students’ initiative, the Newport Housing Authority donated the covered bins that were lined up at Monday’s kickoff like a color guard in a celebratory display — black for trash, green for paper, and blue for plastic, glass and aluminum cans.

A raft of high-profile dignitaries recognized the students’ accomplishments in a ceremony replete with speeches, music and refreshments.

U.S. Sen. Jack Reed said the MET school’s recycling program “was not just about the environment, but about engagement and responsibility — a powerful lesson” that all citizens should learn.

“Ultimately, this will succeed or fail because young people make it a part of their lives,” Reed said.

With about 90 students in grades 9, 10, and 11, the alternative high school, now in its third year, emphasizes a merger of classroom study with real-life experience, according to the director, Charlie Plant.

Although Deanna Ford never had recycling at her home in Newport, she said she has learned how easy it is.

“Once you get to know it, it becomes natural. It’s just what bin you decide to throw it in,” Deanna said.

She said she’s learned “so much” from the students’ research, especially “how little Rhode Island recycles.” Recycling ordinances vary from one community to another. “A lot of businesses don’t recycle, which is huge because businesses have a ton of trash,” Deanna said.

The recycling rate for business is 4 percent. Rhode Island has no penalties for failing to recycle solid waste.

Deanna and the other MET students will track the effectiveness of the school’s recycling program, weighing the trash and calculating the percentage that is recycled every day, according to Nilsson, their mentor. .

After the holidays, the group will get a call from Reed, who said he wants them to help promote an expansion of the Housing Authority’s recycling program.

And with Nilsson’s help, the students will firm up plans for the trip to Sweden, which is expected to last about 10 days.

gmacris@projo.com