Albany goes green!

SPLAT! Another seagull pelts an AHS student with a helping of bird poo. Why are there so many seagulls flying around the courtyard at lunch?

The seagulls are representative of a scary environmental problem at our school: they are attracted to food waste left by students during lunch and breaks. Piles of garbage litter the courtyard every day after lunch, attracting the seagulls and generally polluting the school.

Most people get their trash into the garbage cans scattered around campus. This beats throwing it on the ground, but it makes for a lot of trash, and much of what is being thrown out does not have to be.

“On your school campus, the big issues are waste and why students aren’t recycling. Schools are making enormous amounts of trash that are going into landfills every day, and 60 percent of it didn’t even need to,” explained Lana Husser, the multimedia coordinator for EarthTeam, an environmental network for teens.

EarthTeam is a nonprofit environmental organization that works with students all over the Bay Area. It is supporting a new EarthTeam club at Albany High this year. “Our slogan is ‘support teachers, inspire students, and impact the community,’” she said.

One of their main focuses, Husser said, “is helping students find their voice. They’re the future, and the present, too. Global warming is the issue for this generation. The world is not going to look the same in the next 10 to 15 years as it does today. So do something about it today! It’s your future!”

EarthTeam leads many projects for high school and middle school students. These include a student-written environmental newsletter, called The Green, and an annual Visuals and Voices eco-art, photography and poetry show. There is even a video contest for making documentaries about environmental issues.

The AHS EarthTeam club is planning some exciting projects this year, and has already raised environmental awareness by making recycling presentations in advisory classes.

The club’s next projects include an event about waste at AHS and possibly a push for composting programs for the school. The club is also involved with an EarthTeam Global Warming Campaign, and will be doing a project on it by the end of this school year.

How can we make a difference in solving some of the world’s most critical problems like global warming, endangered species, and rising sea levels? You can start with the smallest choices you make everyday.

So please: Don’t just leave your trash on the ground, because it makes the school gross. And recycle your clean plastic bottles, glass, and paper scraps. But even before you pack your lunch, think about how you could reduce the amount of waste you are creating. Reduce the waste you use, re-use things you have already bought, recycle anything that can be recycled, and rot food scraps in a composting bin, not on the courtyard.

And to help out even more, consider joining an environmental organization. EarthTeam is just one of many environmental groups for high school students. Even just lending a hand at a restoration creek cleanup day makes a big difference.

For more information about EarthTeam, check out www.earthteam.net. To join EarthTeam at AHS, talk to Ms. Fujiwara in room 302. But remember that you can make a difference without becoming an activist, but just by doing your part.

2 Responses

1. 7:46 AM on December 20th, 2006deshawn freemen:

   c’mon buh just put yo food in da trash…u shmell me

2. 12:20 PM on November 12th, 2008Jackie Kaufman:

   xcwenqfuwyxbhn8h

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