I really love carrots. Sweet and crunchy, they make a delicious snack fresh from the garden. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could harvest carrots before the school year ends?” I proposed to the Sustainable Life Club when we were planning what to plant for spring. Wondering how we could start to grow carrots even when it was too cold outside for the carrots to germinate, Ms. Lucia, the club advisor, gave the idea of planting carrots in gutters. Continue reading
We forget about it at the moment it swirls down the drain, as if it were sucked into a dark hole of endless space: once out of sight, it is out of mind. This is how many of us, myself included, think when we take showers or brush our teeth, but is this really how we should think about the water that we use? Shouldn’t we know where our water leads and what happens there? In this article, we will unravel the path across your pipes and the where it goes. Once experiencing the result of your water’s travel, you will believe that every flush counts.
Even though it is a small town, Easthampton produces massive amounts of waste, purifying anywhere from about 1.5 million to 8 million gallons of water in a day. The process of cleaning this dirty water expends many resources itself and it begins with you, when you use water.
Just a few weeks ago, I brought my plate up to the dirty dish belt, where I normally throw away my napkin, but there was no garbage can. I considered throwing away my napkin into the silverware bin. Soon, I found a small sign that said, “We are now composting. Napkins and food stay on your plate.” I immediately thought that my efforts to push the dining hall to get a composting system had finally succeeded.
The Sustainable Life Club had been urging the dining hall to get a composting system installed for a few months. I remember Mr. Martin telling me that it was too costly for what they would be able to compost, but the last time that they considered composting was a few years ago. I thought that the club would have to put on a fundraiser so that we could raise money to bring the composting system into the dining hall.
Bustling Wednesday lunches, an exhausting swimming practice, several long hours in the library, and studying for the next math test make our daily life seem like it is on the brim of its maximum capacity. Constantly running from class to class, with a paper in hand, cramming for the English vocabulary test next period, sometimes we are so busy doing what is assigned to us that we forget what we do best: caring.
Caring for each other happens: we somehow find a little time to take a break and relax with someone and get to know how that person is really doing. Our caring for each other makes Williston a community of connected people, able to lend a hand when necessary.
Often overlooked, but just as important, is how our community cares for the environment. We already live very sustainably because many of us live in dorms, walk to school, and eat in a communal dining hall. Even though we seem to live sustainably, we still use a lot of resources. In order to reduce our resource consumption and reduce the amount of bills the business office has to pay, our school has implemented many low-impact appliances and systems. For example, we have fluorescent lighting in the lampposts around campus, geothermal heating in 194, and composting in the dining hall.
The purpose of this blog is to highlight those things that the community is doing to live more sustainably by educating the public. Christian Knapp, Evan Jacobson, and I will be using this blog as a system of educating the public about the environment and, more specifically, what our school is doing to live in greater harmony with the earth. Continue reading
