Earth Hour March 27

Bulletin Green Tip #7: Bring Your Own Bag

Which one do you think is "greener": using a plastic bag or a brown bag at the grocery store check out line? As it turns out, they're both pretty bad, each with its own reasons to avoid it. (However, I am anti-plastic anything and if faced with the choice, I will always choose paper. Plastic is evil.) The best option is to bring your own bag. Here are some facts for reinforcement of why we should bring our own:

- "in most of Europe and Canada it is considered customary to bring your own bag...Instead of offering discounts for people who do bring their own bags (like in the US), they charge for those who don't."

- "Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest them."

- "A plastic bag can take between 400 to 1,000 years to break down in the environment."

- "Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food."

- "Nearly 90% of the debris in our oceans is plastic."

- More than "380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year."

- The United States "goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually."

- "Four out of five grocery bags in the U.S. are now plastic."

- "The average family accumulates 60 plastic bags in only four trips to the grocery store."

Source: The Crunchy Wife at http://www.thecrunchywife.com/.


Having trouble with remembering to bring the reusable cloth bags with you? Leave them in the car. After you unload your groceries, bring them right back outside and put them in the car. Or, get yourself a free window cling that will remind you to grab the bags before you leave. You could save the energy required to ship you the little window cling and make yourself a pretty little sign for the backdoor. Whatever works for you, just try to remember to bring those bags with you. And if you find yourself at the store without a bag, just reuse the bag as much as possible and then recycle it when you're finished. :)

Some articles on the brown paper versus plastic bag issue:
- The paper vs. plastic question must die (Grist.org)
- Which is more environmentally friendly: paper or plastic? (HowStuffWorks)
- Paper vs Plastic: The Final Decision (Organic Lifestyle magazine)
- Paper Bags or Plastic Bags? Everything You Need to Know (TreeHugger)
- Plastic bags are the devil (No Impact Man)

-- Melissa, secretary

Meeting Agenda with Notes March 12, 2010

Amador Valley High School
Environmental Club Meeting Agenda
March 12, 2010 12:45 PM – 1:21 PM
Mrs. Turner's room, E5

1. Welcome and Introductions: New members.

2. Discussion of paper conservation (2/26/10 – 3/12/10)
- Notes: Taylor printed double –sided, used the backs of old binder paper for new assignments. Liana tried writing smaller to save room.

3. Pleasanton Unified School District Environmental Awareness Committee meeting
- March 24 at 4:30 PM in Bernal Room at PUSD District Offices 4665 Bernal Avenue
- Amador student presentation about Environmental Club’s projects, successes
- Volunteers: Emily and Swethaa

4. 40th Earth Day/Week Celebrations (week of April 19 – 23; Earth Day is April 22nd)
- Reminder to look at Earth Week calendar on blog and in email. Mohr Garden project work day April 23 to be planned.

- Club Events:

Saturday, April 17
Livermore Earth Day Celebration. YES / NO
8:30 AM – 11:30 AM (Volunteer community clean up)
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM (Earth Day Celebration)
Free to the public. Location: Robertson Park, 3200 Robertson Park Road, Livermore. The goal of this volunteer community clean up, non-profit event is to recognize, celebrate and promote the region’s unique beauty and to educate the public regarding how to conserve, preserve and protect our local and global resources.

OR

Earth Day at Forest Home Farms YES / NO
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM at Forest Home Farms, 19953 San Ramon Valley Blvd., between the Bollinger and Alcosta exits off the 680 freeway. San Ramon, CA
Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day while helping to spruce up Forest Home Farms Historic Park for spring! There'll be projects in the vegetable garden, the wildlife garden and around the farm. Bring your own gloves and garden tools. Refreshments will be provided. This is a FREE, volunteer event perfect for scout groups and service clubs.
The club will be attending this event as an informal activity—not school sponsored and the school is not liable. We will have parent drivers for carpooling.

Wednesday, April 21
AVHS Environmental Club presents Flow
Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.
Location: AVHS multipurpose room
Time: 7 – 9 PM. Free admission; popcorn, cookies and water will be sold.
We need to ask teachers if they will offer extra credit for attending.

5. Additional events/activities:
- Alviso Adobe “Tools from the Ancient World” March 27 2PM to 3PM
- Earth Hour March 27, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM turn the lights off! (www.earthhour.org/); Farmer’s Market to pass out fliers 9AM The club will be meeting at the Farmer’s Market on this day, and everyone is welcome to attend. It’s informal, not school-sponsored, etc.
- School black out April 22 We have to write a proposal to submit to administration. There will be different levels/stages of “greenabilty” that teachers can achieve for this day.
- National Agriculture Day March 20: Fact Sheet & Video



6. These Come From Trees: Guerilla Paper Waste Elimination Project: thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com $1 donations?

7. Did anyone check energy meter? Check it out before our next meeting.

8. Share DOTs (Do One Thing).
- billionactsofgreen.net
- Post your DOT on our Facebook page or group to share your idea.
- Liana pledges to take shorter showers. We discussed unplugging electronics to save energy.

9. Food scrapping discussion. We have decided not to apply considering the fact that the bins do not cost anything to obtain. We may consider applying for grant money for solar lights, but for now we will plan on obtaining some bins and possibly starting the food scrap program this school year. We will, at least, obtain them and figure out logistics, etc. We hope to work with Leadership and other clubs (Interact, etc.) to get the process going.

10. Brief discussion of focus group ideas. Taylor will make a list of teacher suggestions to make cards at our next meeting.


11. ACE lesson plan. (We did not discuss this and will discuss it at a future meeting.)

12. Next week’s bulletin green tip #7: Bring your own bag.
- Interesting facts about plastic bags:
We didn’t have time to talk about them, so a bulletin green tip post will be added to the blog including information about plastic bags.

13. Interested bloggers? Check out Taylor's new green blog at taylorconfessions.blogspot.com

Thank you everyone who attended today's meeting!

Tentative Agenda for March 12, 2010 Meeting

This is a tentative agenda; items may change/be added, but here's a general idea of the plan for Friday's meeting (March 12).

Amador Valley High School
Environmental Club Meeting Agenda
March 12, 2010 12:35 PM – 1:06 PM
Mrs. Turner's room, E5
1. Welcome and Introductions: New members & focus group sign ups.

2. Discussion of paper conservation (2/26/10 – 3/12/10)
- Notes:

3. Pleasanton Unified School District Environmental Awareness Committee meeting
- March 24 at 4:30 PM in Bernal Room at PUSD District Offices 4665 Bernal Avenue
- Amador student presentation about Environmental Club’s projects, successes
- Volunteers:

4. 40th Earth Day/Week Celebrations (week of April 19 – 23; Earth Day is April 22nd)
- Reminder to look at Earth Week calendar on blog and in email.
- Club Events:

Saturday, April 17
Livermore Earth Day Celebration. YES / NO
8:30 AM – 11:30 AM (Volunteer community clean up)
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM (Earth Day Celebration)
Free to the public. Location: Robertson Park, 3200 Robertson Park Road, Livermore. The goal of this volunteer community clean up, non-profit event is to recognize, celebrate and promote the region’s unique beauty and to educate the public regarding how to conserve, preserve and protect our local and global resources.

OR

Earth Day at Forest Home Farms YES / NO
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM at Forest Home Farms, 19953 San Ramon Valley Blvd., between the Bollinger and Alcosta exits off the 680 freeway. San Ramon, CA
Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day while helping to spruce up Forest Home Farms Historic Park for spring! There'll be projects in the vegetable garden, the wildlife garden and around the farm. Bring your own gloves and garden tools. Refreshments will be provided. This is a FREE, volunteer event perfect for scout groups and service clubs.

Wednesday, April 21
AVHS Environmental Club presents Flow
Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.
Location: AVHS multipurpose room
Time: 7 – 9 PM. Free admission; popcorn, cookies and water will be sold.

5. Additional events/activities:
- Alviso Adobe “Tools from the Ancient World” March 27 2PM to 3PM
- Earth Hour March 27, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM turn the lights off! (www.earthhour.org/)
- School black out April 22 (Alex Pickert)
- National Agriculture Day March 20: Fact Sheet & Video



6. These Come From Trees: Guerilla Paper Waste Elimination Project: thesecomefromtrees.blogspot.com


7. Did anyone check energy meter?

8. Share DOTs (Do One Thing).
- billionactsofgreen.net
- Post your DOT on our Facebook page or group to share your idea.

9. Food scrapping discussion – ACE grant application.

10. Brief discussion of focus group ideas.

11. ACE lesson plan.

12. Next week’s bulletin green tip #7: _______________

13. Interested bloggers? Check out Taylor's new green blog at taylorconfessions.blogspot.com

Bulletin Green Tip #6: Conserve paper

As students, we come into contact with paper many times every day. Most people living in America come into contact with paper all the time, regardless of what type of job they have. Paper is everywhere and it isn't going away anytime soon. It comes from trees, can be composted and can also be recycled, which you probably already knew. Some things you may not know about paper:

According to DesignVitality.com, "the pulp and paper industry is the third largest consumer of energy and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry. In 2005, out of 245,000,000 tons of waste 34.2% was paper according to the EPA. That is over 83,300,000 tons of paper that is wasted every year."

So we should reduce and conserve paper, which hopefully you already realized. But how do we do that?
When doing homework and classwork, be aware of the amount of paper you use. That is key. Awareness is really important in anything you do when trying to live a more caring, environmentally-conscious life.

- Use scratch paper whenever you can. If you're taking notes you won't be turning in, use the back of an 0ld quiz or assignment.

- Print on both sides of the paper and if you do print on only one side, when you're finished with it, save it for the future. I have a stack of papers by my printer that only have writing on one side. I print on the opposite side for many homework assignments or if I'm printing an article out to save, etc. "You can even use it to jot down notes for yourself instead of wasting Post it notes."

- Try to take up less space with your writing so you can use the paper to its full capacity. If you write small, then use that to your advantage to use the paper as efficiently as possible.

- Buy recycled paper to save trees and energy. When you make paper from old paper, it takes less energy than to create new paper from a tree. "According to the City of Seattle a ton of paper made from recycled paper, as opposed to virgin paper, saves the equivalent of 4,100 kilowatt hours of energy, 7000 gallons of water, 60 pounds of air emissions, and 3 cubic yards of landfill space."

- "Make sure to spell check your work, and even read over it on screen. Use the Print Preview feature to preview your work to make sure everything lines up correctly."

Have some other simple ways to reduce paper use? Post a comment!

Source of quotes: "7 Ways You Can Easily Save Paper and Avoid Killing the Environment."

Ooops...Confession #1

I have recently been using plastic water bottles up the yin yang. I can't seem to get myself to make the effort to fill my reusable one up and/or reuse whatever plastic one is empty...I don't know how to get out of this rut, and I honestly don't really want to because of the convenience. Plus, the water taste's kind of funky in my reusable bottle. I have to figure out some motivation...

adios. Taylor

This was originally posted at Confessions of an Environmental Noob on March 2.

Welcome to Fresh Air, Biggest Noob Ever.

I hiked the ridge today, for the first time, might I add. I think with being environmental friendly comes being more friendly to my body as well. I am so used to dancing in an inside, air-conditioned, away-from-nature studio. This hike was a much needed welcome back into the natural world, and a great form of alternate exercise. Don't get me wrong, it was tough: I huffed, and puffed, and fell down many times. Yet, there is definitely something to be said for being outside, breathing in the surroundings and fresh air, everything seems so much more interconnected and meaningful, but I don't mean to sound cliche and dramatic. The trees surrounding the trails give off oxygen which takes a journey through my lungs, so I am able to keep going and enjoy the beauty of the trees; it's a beautiful circle that I now know I should take advantage of more often. It's nice to step away from my hectic life and cherish the peace hiking and nature bring. It has also inspired me to go back, and perhaps, take my camera to document the beauty and serenity.

adios. Taylor

This was originally posted at Confessions of an Environmental Noob on February 28, 2010.