In a strive to make the school more environmentally friendly, I’m here to talk to you about your use of polystyrene cups and lids. You use one box per week. Now, that may not sound like a lot, but in reality, that’s 1000 cups and lids per week; 32,000 polystyrene cups and plastic lids you use every year, not including during school holidays and meetings. This costs the school over £2000 per year. This means the school is paying £2000 to damage an already damaged environment.
Manufacturing polystyrene contributes largely to global warming due to the products being made of petroleum, which is a heavily polluting resource. Not only this but they cannot be recycled. They cannot biodegrade. 17 million coffee cups are used daily in the UK, with only 1% being recycled. With plastic lids, they’re about the same and every piece of plastic we’ve ever produced is still on the earth somewhere.
A million seabirds and 100,000 marine animals will die each year because of plastic pollution. 54% of these marine animals are entangled in plastic. 80% of this comes from land, which is utterly ridiculous. We need to do something about it because at this rate by 2050, there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish.
We need to do something to help the environment and our futures. I also know how challenging teaching is so to help you help the environment, as we know it’s difficult to adjust to change, you will have a week to get used to bringing your own alternative to polystyrene cups before we scrap them. Along with this, we will be sending you daily emails to remind you, also various hints and tips to help you become more eco-friendly.
In conclusion, I would like to say ‘thank you’ and that I hope you will support our first movement as your school Eco Council. I’d like to finish by saying, you as teachers inspire us daily, so why don’t you inspire us to be more eco-friendly and care about our environment?
Ella Scarr, year 10 – Chair of the Eco Council Jessica Shilling, Jack Gray, Ruby Stringer, Lawrence Frattaroli, Isaac Peacock