Ecofacts

A visit to two schools ….

By Quiet Riot ⋅ April 17, 2009 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Tags: Ecofacts, Quiet Riot, schools

We have the joy of visiting many schools each year, but this particular day was fascinating.

The first school was seriously into recycling. Every classroom had a recycling bucket right outside their door. As I walked down the hall, we saw that each bucket was filled to the brim with disposable water bottles–20 bottles a bucket, 20 recycling buckets in the halls–there were maybe 400 used plastic bottles waiting to be recycled.
 
The second school we visited had only one recycling container for glass, metal, plastics–it was in the lunch room and it was empty. The students had outlawed disposables–they were striving to be a Zero Waste School. Everybody brought their food and drinks, treats, homework, books and other needs in reusable containers: packs, bags, cups, bottles… 

In both schools the kids were electric with excitement. ”Look what we are doing”, they told us.

It is our task as teachers, as parents, to capture the excitement and direct it. Where will we lead them?

If you fill 1/4 of a plastic bottle with oil, you can see how much oil it takes to manufacture and move that bottle from extraction site, to factory, to store, and finally to your home….

If you fill two more plastic bottles (like the first one) with water, you can see how much water it takes to process the plastic to make one disposable plastic bottle.

Meantime…
The FDA governs the quality of the water that you drink inside the plastic bottle.
The EPA governs the quality of the water that comes out of your kitchen tap.
The EPA rules on water quality are more stringent than those of the FDA, so your tap water, in most cases, is as healthy or healthier than bottled water yet the bottled water costs you 1000 times more per ounce than tap water.

From Bill and Dave Mettler, who comprise the entertaining and educational team Quiet Riot
Contact David Mettler david@quietriot.org or William Mettler wmmettler3@aol.com  

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