Leadership and Public Service High School had its second Climate Action event on Wednesday, February 7th. Waste Climate Action Day is about encouraging others to reduce waste by using reusable items and not wasting food, plastic, etc.  To engage advisories, Ellis Y., Ulises A., and Mr. Ottomanelli worked together to create a lesson plan that had students calculate their plastic pollution footprint and plan to reduce plastic waste. “The goals are to reduce the amount of plastic waste and to encourage people to use less plastic,” said ninth grader and Green Team member Ulises A.  “Many people answered the survey,” said Sophia L. “The results were pretty good. Multiple people reported using reusable water bottles, but it could’ve been better,” Ellis Younan stated. The results were pretty high just for one school. I expected the number to be lower since we aren’t using that much paper. Many students seem to use a lot of plastic in one single year. The result was that everyone uses a lot of plastic and their annual use is high.  Ulises A. lamented that “in just one school building we are creating 241,540 pieces of plastic waste each year. Imagine adding the schools across Manhattan – they are likely to be using so much plastic.”

    The Green Team would like people to know about climate change and take action. Sophia, a 9th grader said, “We want to have more people to know how this affects the world,” talking about how the point of Green Team is to make the community aware of the waste created by everyone, especially because the proof is in the data. Ulises expressed his commitment towards this cause stating, “I would want them to know that we are trying our best to reduce the amount of plastic … We also want them to know that they are free to join the Green Team to help us out.”

According to the results of the plastic pollution footprint calculator, the LPS community creates 241,540 pieces of plastic waste every year, with many students creating 1,196 plastic waste on their own.  What is hopeful about all this is that folks also created plans to reduce, refuse, reuse, or recycle pieces of plastic that they consume.  Of course, the hard part is sticking with the plan, but if the thoughtful responses from Jacob D., Melina T., and Sean M., are any indication, we are thinking about how we can make small changes that will have a big impact.

The third Climate Action Day will be on April 17th, and the theme will be Health, Wellness & Green Space.  If you are interested in working on issues of conservation and sustainability, join the Leadership Green Team after school on Thursdays in Room 1015.