CONTENTS

• Quote of the Month
• Question of the Month
• Photos - Submitted by Daniel Hernandez
• "Profit" - Opinion
• "Drake's Unique" - School Opinion
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson - Book Review
• "The Club Moderator"
• "Within an Ecosystem or Habitat" - Poetry
• "What's Recycling and How Does It Work?" - Report
• Join Us - Answer Question of the Month
• Letters to the Editor
• "Green Team" Bio's
• Previous Issues

Mission Statement: We are attempting to strengthen and unify the young environmental community in the Bay Area by sharing interests, information, and calls to action between 1,500 local youth. We seek to inspire participation in projects and events between groups, strengthen journalistic skills, and foster career exploration.

Quote of the Month

"No more than the trees or the stars, you have a right to be here." – anonymous
      submitted by Lea Bond, San Lorenzo High School

Answers to June’s Question of the Month – "What environmental change would you like to see at your school?"

"Many teachers print extensive amounts of handouts, and they will only use one side, or it will be a handout that we only need for class for one day but they make copies for everyone. We need teacher awareness."
Brian David, Acalanes High School, Lafayette

"I would like to see more students at my school taking an interest in the environment."
Rayona Young, Pittsburg High School

"It would be really great to have our whole school off the power grid – like totally self sustaining – with solar, wind, etc. energy."
Jeff Martin, Acalanes High School, Lafayette

"I would like to see ecological debates conducted in school wide assemblies. The debates with which the students are presented as of now are very meaningful, and I think that there could be environmental debates in addition to those. A lot of the issues are connected. If the student body would find the discussions passionate, then maybe they would not find assembly so easy to skip."
~Yvea Eaton

"The cafeteria should offer vegetarian (even vegan) options and an organic menu. At my school there isn’t a single vegetarian option. None of the drinks are healthy either. America is becoming more and more obese. We need to start living healthier."
Zach Bjornson-Hooper, Las Lomas High School, Walnut Creek

"I would like to see an environmental movement at my school where all students participate in practicing environmental stewardship. Being president of my school’s ecology club, I will continue to work hard with my club in connecting with my fellow classmates and teachers in promoting an environmental conscience attitude toward our school and community."
Natalie Roch, Moreau Catholic High School, Hayward

"Not enough people carpool to school, or ride bikes. That would be really great to see."
Vrinda Manglik, Acalanes, High School, Lafayette

"I would like to see a new attitude of passion and awareness for the environment."
-Lei Lei deKirby, Drake High School, San Anselmo

"A consistent energy and imagination for the changes each student has the potential of embarking on."
-Bob Blain, Drake High School, San Anselmo

"I want to see the solutions escape from the heart and truthfully touch people's conscience."
-Susan Loshin, Drake High School, San Anselmo

Question of the Month for July - Let's hear your answers !

"What is a nature experience that you plan to have or hope to do some day?"

Send your answers by June 25th to TheGreen@earthteam.net If you have ideas for questions send them too.

"Drake's Unique"

 Embedded in the small town of San Anselmo lies Drake High School a unique and idealistic school full of youthfully spirited kids, making a REAL difference. My ears are in awe as I reminisce with the Environmental Science Academy (SEA-DISC) about all of their passionate and powerful ideas and pursuits. One of a kind doesn't even begin to explain it.

As the Academy began the year, the juniors at Drake worked hard to restore the habitat of the Corte Madera Creek that runs through Drake's "backyard". Removing destructive plants and replacing them with plants that help to prevent erosion and increase the habitat in the creek as they cleared a healthy passage for the many endangered Steelhead Trout that annually migrate through.

After successfully completing the Steelhead Trout project, SEA-DISC focused on projects that would have a clearer and more visible affect on the community. These were projects that were designed completely by the students. The projects consisted of research and lobbying of a solar heating system for Drake's pool (still in process of grant acceptance), helping to enable the local San Anselmo Juice Joint (@ Red Hill shopping center) to become "green"(environmentally friendly), teaching at local elementary and middle schools the important environmental affect we have on our economy, and certifying Drake as the FIRST SCHOOL EVER in the world to become "green".

After the projects were completed they were presented to the community through power point presentations. This was very successful and SEA-DISC ended up winning the $500 grand prize from EarthTeam’s Million Kilowatt Hour Challenge for the dedication and their vast accomplishments.

SEA-DISC's next project was focused on the atmosphere and CO2 admissions. Four Public Service announcements were designed for the Marin Channel concerning cigarette smoking, deforestation, shopping locally and environmentally friendly transportation, and how they all contributed immensely to carbon monoxide distributions into the atmosphere. They were focused on positive ways to implement healthy environmentally friendly changes into our lives, while conveying the negative effects that carbon monoxide has on our world and our lives. (They will be showing soon, in the upcoming months, on the Marin Channel.)

SEA-DISC is currently refocused on the Corte Madera Creek at the moment and going back to more analysis and inquiry about the habitat for the endangered Steelhead Trout, through chemical, physical and macro invertebrate investigation. Although Drake is not the only school to be making a difference, SEA-DISC is setting presidents and making a large dent with their views and actions in today's seemingly hopeless commercially oriented society. A new generation with a unique influential power to act on their passions.

Reviewed by Vrinda Manglik, Acalanes High School, Lafayette

Imagine a spring completely void of birds singing, wildflowers blooming, and wildlife thriving. Sadly, in particular regions of the world, this is the case due to current and past irresponsible usage of chemicals, including DDT.

I found out about this month’s book, Silent Spring, from the side of my vanilla soy milk carton. It had a short biography of Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, as a part of its "Great American Heroes" series. "Carson was one of the nation’s first ‘environmentalists,’ before the word existed."

Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962, as a result of her studies of the effects of pesticides, insecticides and chemicals on nature and living creatures, specifically in America. "She deliberately wrote for the public rather than for a narrow scientific audience" (Linda Lear, introduction to Silent Spring).

This book is jam-packed with credible information and facts. The information she provides is a shocking bitter truth to man’s effects on the environment. Gallons upon gallons of pesticides have been dumped on the environment in the name of eliminating "enemy insects." Inadvertently the pesticides have killed millions of birds, fish, "helpful insects," beavers, moose, and have posed a serious threat to human health.

In nature, it is impossible to isolate a particular species: "Seldom if ever does Nature operate in closed and separate compartments" (Carson 42). Therefore, by introducing extremely toxic chemicals to the environment, complications occur. Everything is connected. For example, if DDT is sprayed upon a field to kill an insect, cows may also graze upon that grass. Humans may then consume their milk, and consume the DDT traces. The spray may additionally drift into a nearby river and kill scores of fish, thus throwing the ecosystem completely out of whack.

What is even scarier is that the long-term effects of many of these poisons are unknown, but are still being used. Fortunately, this book helped lead to the ban of DDT in 1972. However, many dangerous insecticides still loom at large.

Carson presents her extremely valid argument very clearly. She provides a complete but comprehensive breakdown of the chemical make-up of the main groups of insecticides. She supports her argument of their dangers with specific examples of their effects on wildlife and humans from around the country. Most importantly, she then provides effective alternatives to mass chemical usage, and there are many!

Though this book was published more than 40 years ago, it is still extremely informative. It shows how the commitment of a dedicated individual can change environmental policy. It makes the reader assess the effects of man’s actions on the environment, and blatantly proves that knowledge is power.

By Natalie Rocha, Moreau Catholic High School, Hayward

21st century folk tale inspired from an Australian folktale "The Mother Snake" retold in the Aboriginal Storyteller

In the start of a new high school there was a dedicated teacher who worked hard at her job. For a long time the teacher worked long hours, and eventually she realized that she was spending much of her time alone after school hours. Breaking out of her isolating habits, she decided to start a student club. She attracted the attention of a few students in each of her classes. With the interested students excited to form a club, the teacher held meetings after school. The teacher realized that the newly found club needed a mission and specific purpose to meet.

Reflecting on the school mission and observing the progress of the new high school, the teacher decided there was a need to develop and practice environmental stewardship. Sharing her thoughts with the students regarding practicing ecological stewardship in the school, she had awoken a new perspective to the club members.

The students began to brainstorm on ideas to get the whole school involved with this new mission of theirs to practice environmental stewardship. The teacher then noticed how passionate the students were becoming. The students came up with a genius idea of creating a School Recycling Program. The student club members worked hard to write proposals, present presentations, and manage budget tasks to make this new recycle program successful in their new high school.

Proud of her students, the teacher realized that she had done a successful job in inspiring these young students. The students of this ecology club had learned from the teacher how to live with respect and love for the environment. The teacher had taught them a way to share with other fellow students to honor and to respect the earth. Very satisfied on how she had lived her life working at the new high school, the teacher decided it was time to retire. She left the high school in the good hands of those students who were the club members of the environmental club she started.

As the years passed in the high school, the environmental club continued to flourish with new members, new school campaigns, and new inspirations to follow and create. The student club members were the strong leaders of the school. Becoming the leading school of education with merits of environmental stewardship, the high school became the role model school for other schools to follow.

The high school made such a positive and powerful impact that any school that did not have an environmental conscious community, knew immediately that they needed to get involved in environmental stewardship. It was said that if any school did not practice environmental stewardship, it was known that one green day, the spirit of teacher, founder of the first club, would come to find and punish the school that did not respect the earth.

In certain cultures, protecting the earth is not a priority, but this tale tells of the importance to conserve and protect our planet as well as sharing this passion with others.
All it takes is one small action to make a world of positive difference. This one woman planted a seed that beautifully flourished to touch the lives of many people and environments. One can make a difference.

By: Alyssa Jordan, Chase Middle School, Washington

Biodiversity is many things
Birds, trees, flowers
Everything helps everything
Sit and watch for hours

Robins, sparrows, mallards, and blackbirds
Are all a part of it too
Seems like you could put it all into words
But then you don't want to

Why make something lose its beauty
Just so you can say
I went walking through the city
And saw a flower today?

Many words can not express
The way nature enriches lives
We can put it to the test
We can see how much it thrives

Animals are quickly disappearing
And cultures, one per week
The songbird's song we won't be hearing
What would they say if they could speak?

Arrow leaved balsamroot
And little grass widows
Nature in many ways is cute
I hope it never goes

Nature is beautiful in many ways
But humans can ruin it so switfly
Nature isn't seen much these days

The I-Search Project - "What’s Recycling and How Does It Work?"

(Editor’s Note – Carver is a small town that has no recycling. If you want to recycle you take your trash to the recycling center. Brycen became very interested in recycling and wrote this report.)

What is recycling and how much does it help us? My inspiration for this topic came around Christmas time. I was throwing away a piece of paper my self, and noticed an array of paper waste products. Everyone had been opening their gifts in homeroom from their friends. Gifts are great, but the waste each gift produced was incredible. With one gift you have a big paper bag and huge amounts of wrapping paper. As I thought about the full trash can a reoccurring theme began to ring, paper.

I knew that there must be a way to cut down on the waste or at least take advantage of the paper waste Carver’s high school system produced. I knew from common knowledge that recycling has saved money for organizations, schools, companies, and towns. I knew that recycling was also a great proactive way to stop deforestation in our rainforests. My biggest questions were about what to do about the problem, and how to get started on stopping the problem.

There had to be something done about the tremendous paper waste in Carver High School. I didn’t know where to start with the overwhelming task of starting a recycling program in our school. After researching the topic of how others have started recycling programs at their schools, I found that staff cooperation was needed. So I decided to ask Mrs. Spencer to help me with the idea of recycling in the schools. When I met with her she told me that a teacher, Ms. Littleton, had started an environmental club for her science pupils. Though a recycling program had not yet been started, it was in the back of Ms. Littleton’s mind. When I join the environmental club we started the recycling project right away.

Our first task was to find how we would get a recycling company to help us with the waste problem and recycle the waste. We soon learned that to give the recycling companies an idea of what the scale of our paper waste problem was, we would need a trial. A full scale trial of the new "paper only" bins in every class room was not a feasible task, so my suggestion was to do a smaller sampling of five to seven rooms and multiplying the waste by the number of rooms in the school. This proved to be a good plan and took a full week. Still in progress this recycling program is well on its way to success. Now my interest in the field of recycling has been pushed past just paper and Carver’s role in its solution. I wonder what else is recyclable and what is recycled material used for? In the process of starting the recycling program at school I have met the owners of recycling companies which could give me an interesting interview. How does it benefit me to recycle? All of these questions, I plan to answer in my quest for further knowledge during my i-search.

Thursday morning, that is when my trash man comes and has come every since I can remember. His name is John Andrews. When my sister and I were younger, rough old Mr. Andrews would come up to our front door and give my sister, Lindsey, and me one dollar each. Of course, this was always after he picked up his more than healthy paycheck from my parents, but we did not realize that at the time so to us (my sister and I) John was a cool, old guy that paid me to watch him throw my trash into his truck. For a portion of my wee years a waste management engineer was my future. To a kid, anyone who gives them stuff is an idol of sort, whom they aspire to be like ‘when they grow up’. These childhood memories, I guess, one could say are where the humble beginnings of my interest in recycling trash began!

I’ve always wondered what happened to that trash after it was loaded into that rustic old truck. In researching this topic I have learned what happens to everyone’s trash past the tipping of a can into the back of an enormous truck. At first someone might ponder at what trucks have to do with recycling, but wait, you will soon see the light. Two types of trucks can pick up trash from an area. The first, and most common of the two, is the rear loader. A rear loading truck takes it from the back. These types of trucks can only handle the lightweight materials such as your common yard waste, house-hold paper items, and your granpa’s worst nightmare, wasted food. The second of the garbage truck species is the front loader. This may come as a surprise, but a front loader loads trash from the front! Unlike the rear loader, a front loading truck has bigger muscles allowing for larger cans, called dumpsters, to be emptied into the truck by way of a lifting device which picks the dumpster up and over the cabin of the truck.(Trash!) A new garbage truck will run you up the alley of $120,000 or more.

Post-loading, this assortment of monstrous machines receive a tummy tuck where a mechanical device called a packer, for obvious reasons, pushes and compresses all of your wasted materials toward the front in order to make room for more, like a fat man at a buffet. Once filled and bloated from a tough day on the job, the truck heads off to one of a few places. The first of these places could be a landfill, or a transfer station which sends trash to a landfill. Landfills are special areas for trash disposal. The average landfill is usually a hole in the ground a few acres in size. And yes, a landfill is exactly what it sounds like… a filled hole in the ground, in which trash is thrown and eventually covered with dirt. A landfill is open and operational for approximately twenty years. Now, what most people start to wonder is what is thrown into the landfills? Well, the answer is pretty much whatever you throw away. Anything you wouldn’t want washing away with the rain into your ground water…don’t feed the garbage truck! The hazardous waste and metals are thrown away with the rest of the trash is separated from the safe trash. The method by which this is done is neither reliable nor efficient. A team of people walk through the landfill looking for potentially hazardous items. Often they catch the materials before they are covered but it is very difficult to do.

Despite the low-tech methods involved in landfills, there are benefits to be reaped from these barren looking landfills. One of these beneficial aspects of a landfill is the production of methane gas, commonly known as natural gas. In a landfill the piles of waste decompose due to the mixture air and a steamy environment in the ballpark of 150°F. Natural gas can be used in a variety of ways such as domestic and industrial fuel, shoe polish, printing ink, tire manufacturing, and the manufacturing of methyl alcohol. According to Trash!, 3 million tons of garbage can achieve enough gas to heat 18,000 homes for 15 years! Not many other reuses are available for waste in a landfill, but a covered and reforested landfill can be used as a baseball, soccer or any other kind of recreational facility.

When recycled the number of creative solutions to the waste problem are far greater. Paper is, at the same time, the most commonly recycled material and the least recycled material of all. Just stop… and think for a few minutes. Strike that, think for a few seconds, about the number of items around you that require paper or wood. If I had passed this research piece on a neatly organized packet of pages, it too would have been made of paper.

Classroom decorations, plates, calendars napkins, and even your morning news all come in the form of paper. 41% of the trash in the United States of America is paper, and a bulk of this paper is newsprint. Let us just pause for a moment, and imagine if in an instance every thing in the world made of wood simply vanished! You would literally be sitting on the ground. And we won’t even go to the places like the bathroom because-umm- things would get messy.

To truly understand the process of paper recycling you’ll have to take a couple of small courses. The first of your two courses will be History 101. So let us begin. First invented in China around the second century B.C., paper is nearly 2,000 years old. Paper making from then on became more and more efficient. The art spread to the Arabs by the eighth century A.D. They used rags, plants, and linen to produce their paper. Later, in 1799, the first papermaking machine was manufactured. In the years surrounding World War 2, great efforts were made to recycle paper. The recycling mentality spread like wildfire in dry season throughout America. Post WWII the shortage of paper and metals was no longer a problem and recycling was put on the back burner and seen as unnecessary thereby sparking a revolution of disposables. By the 1990’s nearly 60% of American paper was virgin wood, leaving 40% as recycled paper. Like everything else, it seems, nothing is made the way it used to be. And paper is no different.

In the beginning, paper was stronger and more durable because they used more rag fibers than tree fibers. As the paper supply went down, the demand went up. In order to meet the needs of the world, a less expensive and quicker paper needed to be produced. The final result was today’s paper product. Now, with all this paper waste (which increased with the invention of the printer) Americans spend a little beyond $7 billion per year to get rid of their trash.

The bell has rung! Everyone to your seats, you’re not special, that includes you. It’s time for Anatomy (in a nutshell), the last of your two classes. To begin, most paper is made from soft wood. Spruce and Fir are included under this genre of soft woods.

Recycled paper undergoes the same course of action as the virgin wood. Chemicals and bleach are added to the pulp in varying amounts depending on the degree of softness and whiteness desired. Here, virgin wood is added to strengthen the recycled paper. Virgin wood, new pulp, is added because as recycled paper is used over and over again the tree fibers break apart, thereby, weakening the overall product.

If by now, you don’t understand the concept of recycling let me enlighten you. It’s a concept as old as time itself. Three basic methods are included in the concept. The primary method is done by integrating waste into nature’s cycle like using paper clippings as fertilizer, turning food into compost, and/or mixing it into the soil letting nature take its course. The next method of recycling is to use materials for the same purpose more than once. Last but not least is the method of finding new or innovative ways to reuse old items such as using old cans to create decorations or pen holders.

Recycling today has taken a whole new face. The government and other committees have taken some action to further improve recycling. Shiny, colored, or coated papers are separated in order to receive special treatment. High grade papers, for instance drawing paper, contain higher rag content, more bleach and differing amounts of blue and red dye for whiteness. Low grade paper contains less rag content and less blue and red dye which results in a grayer paper color. Another government initiative includes 100% recycled paper mills which contain the least amount of virgin wood as possible.

What problems exist in today’s recycling industry? Well, the biggest I have discovered is the inability of some recyclers to handle the amount of paper they have received. Consequentially, the shipping of paper has cost some companies money to ship excess materials away. In order for recycling to remain an attractive option, new markets must be found for recycled materials. For example, scientists have found that a fuel can be produced in the form of alcohol from paper.

Like mentioned many moons ago, metal is removed from the flowing mass of trash by an enormous magnet, almost as big as the one you need to keep the array of papers on your fridge from falling off every time you walk by. With the retrieved metal, titanic cubes are formed for easier transportation. What do they now do with these monster truck sized mirror dice? Well, you guessed it. They are recycled to be used as other metal materials. The process is almost G-rated boring. The rusty pieces are thrown back like those small fish you never catch. Rusty metal ruins a good batch of metal. The metal is heated to 3000°F and flattened into sheets. The sheets are sent out to the appropriate companies and that’s a wrap!

Plastic is the complex cousin in the recycling family. It has many sides, characteristics, abilities, and intricacies. The people of America love it! You must, because it composes 25% of all your trash. 15 decades ago the dawn of the plastics age was born. It was not the same plastic we see around today. Today’s plastics (Bakelites, the first entirely synthetic plastics) are a mere 60 years old. Plastics are made from parts of oils and coal. It’s a wonder how they get such a foul substance as coal into a clearly beautiful item as plastic. Sadly, the natural resources of coal and oil are quickly being used up for fuel purposes. If the fuel consumption isn’t soon slowed, the materials necessary for plastic production will be rare, and plastic will become expensive. For now, amongst all the building materials available, plastic is the strongest, cheapest, and easiest material to form. I wouldn’t the least bit doubt it if you have bought a plastic saran wrapping. This material is of extreme convenience because it’s effective and, being the tight-wad you are, cheap to buy. For all those that squeak when they walk, Leo Baekeland (a Belgian-born chemist-entrepreneur) was something like a god!

Plastic production has come a long way since its first appearance in the world in 1907. The word plastic no longer describes one material. It names a range of many types of materials (over 45 varieties in fact). Each of which has been evolved and adapted to best suit the purpose it is meant to serve whether it be a lawn chair, lobster bib, saran wrap, medical apparatus’, or the revolutionary idea of the plastic soda bottle.

Don’t get me wrong plastic has its fair share of problems. Like all great hero’s, plastic too has an Achilles heel. The flaw in plastics is that most of them are only meant to be used once and then thrown away in the trash. The one time use avalanche of products like plastic baggies, plastic bowl covers, saran wrap, and even the plastic water bottles are all huge waste problems. In an interview with, both, Pauline Lawrence (a recycling expert in California) and Roberta (also a recycling expert) I found that the best way to recycle a plastic is to reuse it as many times as physically possible. Another extremely challenging task is to find some way to organize, recycle, and coordinate such a diverse assortment of plastic. As you now know there are well over 45 varieties of plastic to help create items like your favorite lawn chair set, the Gatorade© bottles on the counter you keep meaning to use again as water bottles, Glad Ware™ containers, and the list goes on forever. If you have ever noticed the small recycling symbols (ie. ) then you might have wondered what the number in the middle means. These numbers could be one between 1 and 7, and the numbers tell recyclers what type of plastic to recycle it with. The 1 plastics are the easiest to recycle, remarks Pauline, and are called poly plastics. An example of this plastic is your common soda bottle. Number 2 and 3 are classified as the high density plastics. Enclosed in this category are thick containers requiring more strength and support like detergent bottles. 4 plastics are, surprisingly, at the other end of the spectrum in relation to number 2 plastics because it is low density material akin to trash can liners and such. Now for the number 5 plastics which are the poly propheline substances. An example of a poly propheline plastic is the kind of material that the Heinz© is made of. We’re almost done at number 6 plastics which include items like meat trays and package peanuts. I know just the mention of package peanuts makes you smile so to top off the good mood you’re in I give you the last type of plastic… number 7. Number seven is the junk drawer of all the categories. It just represents the rest of the plastics that can’t be recycled due to the alluvial mixture of a whole bunch of different plastics.

At this point you understand what can be recycled and what it can be recycled with. So let us continue with the brute facts of exactly how the plastics mentioned are recycled. Past the primary events of transportation to the local recycling center, there is a lot of process’ that take place. The plastics are separated according to their numbers and treated in the same basic methods. When the recycling center gathers the final sum of plastic they’re shredded and compressed into, what they call in the industry, bails. Plastics destined for culinary purposes are properly cleaned of bacteria and germs. Then all of the plastics are heated to varying temperatures in order to melt and reform them. The proceeding step is to send this enormous plastic mass to a company that needs it for consumer to once again purchase.

What are the down sides to not recycling? Well, in the case of soda bottles, you lose money. 5 cents every time you throw a bottle away. Maybe 5 cents does not seem that great of a financial deficit, but considering that 25% of all the trash in the world is plastic, 5 cents is a significant amount of money for the world to be throwing away. The next ghastly consequence of merely disposing of your plastic recyclables away is that you create a problem unaffected by the elements. Like that homeless guy at the park, plastic sticks around forever, and every time you walk by that unsightly mess it begs for change. And if you don’t do it for yourself, do it fo’ the children.

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Letters to the Editor

Please send your responses to anything in the Green or anything environmental. We'll print it in the next issue. Also, send us your answers to the Question of the Month by the 25th of the month. It would be great to hear from you. Contact TheGreen@earthteam.net