The Green Team

 

This is a teacher-led student club that works collaboratively with the Lakeridge Green Schools Program to support our recycling and composting programs, energy conservation, and the Learning Garden.

 

 

 

about the green team

This is a teacher-led student club that works collaboratively with the Lakeridge Green Schools Program to support our recycling and composting programs, energy conservation, and the Learning Garden. Students also work on other projects to sustain, protect and educate fellow students about Earth stewardship. This club is led by Lakeridge teachers whose stipends are funded by the Mercer Island School District as part of our district commitment to environmental stewardship. 

 

 

 

Registration

 

Who is Eligible? Green Team is open to 3rd through 5th grade students. As a member of the Green Team, students will work side by side with our district Green Schools Program representatives to educate, inform, and build a green philosophy at Lakeridge.

 

The Commitment: To participate in Student Green Team, we ask that your child commit to 12 out of 16 meetings where students will be learning about the importance of sustainability as well as educating the community about ways they can improve their practices.

 

Registration: Please complete the Green Team contract and email it back to Lakeridge teacher, Heather McLyman. 

 

 

 

2023-24 details

 

  • Meeting Dates:  September 27, October 11and 25, November 8, January 10 and 24th, February 7 and 28, March 13 and 27, April 17, December 6, May 8 and 22, and June 5.  
  • Meeting Time: 8:15-9am
  • Meeting Location: Lakeridge Elementary
  • Cost: FREE

 

 

contact

If you have any questions, please email Heather McLyman. 

 

 

 

Q&A WITH NANCY WEIL | FORMER PTA PRESIDENT, GARDEN CLUB LEADER, and green team supporter

 

Many parents have approached me with questions about what is and isn’t the ‘green’ way to shop at the grocery store, how to send ‘green’ lunches and sing for explanations about why and how things are bad for the planet. I get a lot of  “What’s the difference between a Capri Sun pouch and a juice box?”, “What’s wrong with string cheese?”, “What is a waste free lunch?”, “Is the foil on top of yogurt tubs recyclable?”,”Is a ziplock bag trash?”, “Why does it matter if I buy in bulk? I have answers to many of these questions and welcome you to email me anytime. If I don’t know right away, I will find the answer.

 

1) What exactly is a waste free lunch? A waste free lunch is a lunch where nothing goes into the trash can. The lunch itself, your drink, the entree and any snacks get sent in reusable containers. It all goes to school and it all comes back home. Nothing goes into the trash. Left-over food scraps going into the compost are fine because they are turned into compost! Making any change is a great start! Reusable containers don’t have to be fancy, they can just be reusing the plastic tub that your yogurt came in and using to cloth baggies instead of a ziplock bag are both great steps in the right direction! Here is a great link on how to pack a waste-free lunch.

 

2) What’s the big deal between Capri Sun foil pouches and plastic bottles, milk cartons and juice boxes?

Simple, they are all recyclable and Capri Sun is NOT. Capri Suns pouches are made by bonding layers of aluminum and plastic together, making them very difficult to recycle. Did you know that enough Capri Suns are sent to the landfill every single year, enough to wrap around the earth 5 times! Make a difference today and stop buying Capri Suns. The National Resource Defense Council has an entire campaign dedicated to this cause. 

 

3) Why does buying in bulk matter over single use items like yogurt, string cheese etc..? One of the main components of the lunchroom trash bin is packaging. The chip bag, the granola bar, the yogurt tub, the string cheese wrapper, the apple sauce squeeze pouch, the yogurt tube . . . these are all single use items that cannot be recycled. When you buy in bulk, you are removing a huge amount of this excess packaging. A lot of the time the large containers that hold the bulk item is recyclable, just not its tiny, individually wrapped version. Even if the bulk packaging is not recyclable, it is still conserving a lot of resources by reducing the excess packaging. Easy solution to some of these problems: String cheese - small, flimsy plastic wrappers are all trash (chip/crackers foil pouches of all kinds too). Buy a two pound block of cheese, cut it up into bite size cubes and store it in your fridge and send to school in little tubs! Yogurt - buy the large tub and use reusable containers to send the yogurt to school with your kids! 

 

4) Why are plastic ziplock bags and plastic in genera also bad for the environment? Plastic bags are from the same source as all plastic: crude oil. Like everything else manufactured from this non-renewable resource, it has two major drawbacks: manufacturing it emits considerable amounts of pollution into the air, and the product is not biodegradable. In other words, it is difficult to produce, and nearly impossible to get rid of once produced. According to the Natural Environment website, 60 to 100 million barrels of oil are required to manufacture a year’s worth of plastic bags worldwide, and it takes approximately 400 years at least for a bag to biodegrade.  This has lead to a huge problem for ocean animals as the plastic breaks down into micro plastics, marine life ingest it and it making them very sick. Please contact me with any questions at nancyweil@gmail.com. Together we can make a difference one lunch at a time! Making these changes at home will help support the work your kids are doing in school at lunchtime! Did you know that all of your food scraps can go directly into your yard waste bin at home, to be turned into rich soil! Chicken bones, coffee grinds, egg shells, melon rinds and just about everything you eat . . . except gum!