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Huakailani Montage

4.4.09

National Green Week at Huakailani

Our school is taking part in a very exciting green educational opportunity for our students during National Green Week, April 6- 10. The goal of this special assignment is for the girls to learn firsthand how they, no matter how small, can make a huge difference in saving our planet’s resources.

Our school will be joining over 2,000 schools across the nation for National Green Week with the combined goal to eliminate two million pounds of waste during this one week. 

National Green Week Overview

One week prior to our school's Green Week the students will be weighing all snack trash collected in the classroom to determine the amount of trash accumulated each day from snacks leftovers. We are encouraging (but not requiring) the students to use reusable snack and drink containers to carry snacks and drinks to school each day during Green Week.

The class will weigh daily all the garbage collected in the classrooms snack waste (note: organic fruit waste such as apple cores and banana peels will not be counted towards the snack weight totals - we will feed organic waste to our class worms). After Green Week, we will tally the results of the before and after weights and announce them here on the blog.

We encourage purchasing snacks and drinks in bulk (or fresh fruit). Use your shopping trips as a learning opportunity for your child. Don’t forget to bring your reusable shopping bag; you may want to keep it on your front passenger seat so you remember to take it with you prior to going into the store.

Our goal is to eliminate snack trash coming into the school from home.

This is an important environmental educational program and lesson. We encourage you to discuss what living green means to your family and why it is so important for us to all take an active part in preserving our planet’s resources.

Thanks for being green and helping to reduce your carbon footprint on the beautiful planet we call our home!

Keep checking back for some exciting Earth Day Facts!

March 31 - 1 oz.
April 1 - 1 1/4 oz.
April 2 - 1 oz.
April 3 - 1/2 oz.

TOTAL: 3 3/4 oz.

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The Real Cost of Plastic Bags

The Real Cost of "Free"
Well over a billion single-use plastic bags are given out for free each day. But as the old adage says, nothing comes for free. Here are some facts to illustrate the actual costs paid by our environment and society for the fleeting convenience of unlimited, free, single-use plastic bags. To see the real costs, we must look at the "cradle to grave" multiple impacts and the effects of each phase of a bag's life.

Phase 1: Production Costs
The production of plastic bags requires petroleum and often natural gas, both non-renewable resources that increase our dependency on foreign suppliers. Additionally, prospecting and drilling for these resources contributes to the destruction of fragile habitats and ecosystems around the world.

The toxic chemical ingredients needed to make plastic produces pollution during the manufacturing process.

The energy needed to manufacture and transport disposable bags eats up more resources and creates global warming emissions.

Phase 2: Consumption Costs
Annual cost to US retailers alone is estimated at $4 billion.

When retailers give away free bags, their costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Phase 3: Disposal and Litter Costs
Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food. Turtles think the bags are jellyfish, their primary food source. Once swallowed, plastic bags choke animals or block their intestines, leading to an agonizing death.

On land, many cows, goats and other animals suffer a similar fate to marine life when they accidentally ingest plastic bags while foraging for food.

In a landfill, plastic bags take up to 1,000 years to degrade. As litter, they breakdown into tiny bits, contaminating our soil and water.

When plastic bags breakdown, small plastic particles can pose threats to marine life and contaminate the food web. A 2001 paper by Japanese researchers reported that plastic debris acts like a sponge for toxic chemicals, soaking up a million fold greater concentration of such deadly compounds as PCBs and DDE (a breakdown product of the notorious insecticide DDT), than the surrounding seawater. These turn into toxic gut bombs for marine animals which frequently mistake these bits for food.

Collection, hauling and disposal of plastic bag waste create an additional environmental impact. An estimated 8 billion pounds of plastic bags, wraps and sacks enter the waste stream every year in the US alone, putting an unnecessary burden on our diminishing landfill space and causing air pollution if incinerated.

From www.reuseblebags.com