Huakailani School for Girls Blog: Hawaii 25th Statehood Time Capsule

25th Anniversary Time Capsule - Articles written about the Time Capsule Ceremony selected from each grade 2- 5 (from the Class of 2009 - 2010).

2nd Grade (KZ)

I am writing about the day my school buried the time capsule. It was a wonderful day to bury the time capsule. Huakailani School buried the time capsule In Kailua. It was by the Beach Girls Statue and the gas station.

I brought in coins. My friends brought in a spoon and a DVD. Everyone put something in the new time capsule so we would remember when we were kids. I hope when I am older that I can dig it up. Then we could see what it was like when we were little.

I liked that day because we buried the time capsule . The time capsule ceremony is something I will never forget.

3rd Grade (CS)

Our school buried a time capsule! It is buried by the Beach Girl statue in Kailua It was awesome!

People brought stuff to put in the time capsule like a plastic ring and a DS game. People brought other things too like newspapers.

The time time capsule was buried in Kailua so we could walk there. We buried it underground so that in 25 years people can see what we used in 2009.

Our school ceremony was awesome! I liked it because we got to be a part of the ceremony. I will be 34 when they dig it up. I wonder where I will be in 25 years?

Grade 4 (SL)

I am going to tell you about a time capsule my school buried. It was a fun day! The whole school put stuff in the time capsule. It was full of all kinds of stuff. We had to squish everything inside.

Some people brought cool things. Everyone brought at least one item. I brought in a Hannah Montana CD and Michael Jackson's 'This Is It" CD.

The time capsule is buried by the Kailua Beach Girl Statue.

Everyone had a great time! Everyone was happy. The moms were proud and took many pictures of the girls.

I will remember everything about that day. I hope we can do it again some day.

Grade 5 (KCA)

I am going to tell you about our school Time Capsule. I brought in a magazine to place in it. Other classmates brought in medals, photos of their family and even a wooden sake cup!

I really liked the idea of putting in a photo to show how young you were when it was buried.

More than 23 people attended and the capsule is buried in front of the Kailua Beach Girl statue. I was not able to attend the ceremony because I was absent from school that day but everyone had fun.

The reason why we did a time capsule was to form memories because in 25 years, everything will probably change. I will be 35 years old!

I heard that everyone got to share a wish for the future at the ceremony. I hope they all come true! We formed many memories by burying the time capsule.

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