Excellent Ten Minute Video on the IPCC and What We Need to Do
Wednesday, 1/16 Environmental Club meeting
-took yearbook photo (all of us hanging out of a big tree on campus)
-brainstormed for t-shirts (hemp and/or organic, sweatshop free cotton tees, probably with the design of the outline of a tree, with extensive roots matching the branches, that reads "We are the roots of the solution")
-Additionally, because the shirts will be organic, thus more expensive, we will provide a discount to anyone who trades in a cell phone or 2 printer cartridges for recycling. We've found a company (www.greenphone.com) that provides cash for each cell phone recycled, so we won't be losing any $$ off the transaction.
-Also, regarding cell phones, check out this excellent NYT article on cell phone recycling...the most shocking fact eclub noticed was that "Using data from the United States Geological Survey
and mining companies’ own reports, Earthworks estimates that mining the
gold needed for the circuit board of a single mobile phone generates
220 pounds of waste. The environmental nonprofit calls this “an
extremely conservative” estimate."
-If you don't have time to read the 6pg. article, the meaning we gleaned, was that it's definitely better to recycle your phone. There's a burgeoning market for the phones in underdeveloped countries, in which new phones are very expensive, yet a necessary part of life because of the lack of land lines. Your phone, despite being out of warranty/style, has the potential for many more years of service if properly "disposed of".
-Our club funds now exceed $3000. We're hoping to invest in no-idling signs (first for the HS, then maybe the district), as well as laminated signs to attach to the recycling signs enumerating what condition the recyclables must be in. Finally, once we do more research, we would like to give funds for the initiation of buying wind energy through NYSEG for the HS and then the district.
-We will hopefully get a TV set up showing the 10% video, perhaps the story of stuff (storyofstuff.com) video, as well as the most recent one shown above, starting the first week in February, which will be running during the school day next to our recycling station. (students can watch in between periods or during a free)
-We will be partially dismantling the recycling station soon, but keeping the display for cell phones, batteries and printer cartridges in the main office. Everything else can be recycled in the school bins. That same week, we will have messages on the morning and afternoon announcements about remembering to recycle.
-We've decided not to partake in the "Focus the Nation" event (A K-12 + College event, educating campuses on climate change) it requires interrupting the school day and there's just not enough time to do it justice. We will post information on any other local actions occurring for those who are interested.
-Next year, the club is thinking of doing a recycling grade level competition (like what has been done between many of the northeast liberal arts colleges) in which the grade that recycles the most clean recyclables in a given drop off point gets more points towards homecoming...which eventually means more cash for the respective grade's homecoming..it can get pretty intense)
-This spring, we'd like to try to organize a competition between buildings as to who can recycle the most. This would have to be regulated so that each building can only have so many classrooms compete so as to level the playing field, but essentially, E Club/the custodians, would measure the amount of garbage each building produced in a given week MINUS the # of clean/permissible recyclables. The winner (with the lowest score) would get bragging rights + some sort of a trophy. Given the layout of the school, this would put math, science, language, history, english, theater, and computers/engineering all in fierce competition.
-We plan to attend the PACE Students for a Sustainable Future Expo this April, sponsored by CELF.
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