Dear Principal Ainsworth,
.
I write to you today to draw your attention to improvements I
think would make Callington Community College a more environmentally friendly
school and staff and pupils more environmentally aware and responsible.
.
I was pleased to read in issue 34 of ‘The Voice’ Callington
Community College is now part of the green charter for schools initiative and
are committed to promoting environmental awareness. I have also been encouraged
by initiatives like Oceans Day, but I am concerned these measures do not go far
enough.
.
As I’m sure you are aware, our planet is facing a climate
emergency. 67,000 acres of rainforest is destroyed every day ¹. Over 8 million
metric tons of plastic are thrown into the ocean annually ². Of those, more
than 236,000 tons are microplastics ³. It is thought 10,000 species go extinct
each year ⁴ with thousands more listed by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature ⁵ as
threatened with extinction or critically endangered. I feel the school
currently contributes enormously to the ever growing environmental problems and
have identified key areas I feel we should be taking more direct action.
.
1. Excessive Plastic Consumption. Almost all the plastic used in
the school is single use with little effort being made to reduce the use of
items such as plastic cutlery in the canteen, drinks bottles in vending
machines and pens. Did you know Plastics kills approximately 100,000 sea
creatures and 1 million sea birds each year? ⁶
.
2. Recycling. There were not enough recycling bins around the
property up until recently. I’ve noticed that now the awareness of plastic and
recycling has been raised you have now added a few bins, but there is no signs.
Did you know many items such as crisp packets, sweet and biscuit wrappers can
be recycled through Terracycle allowing charities such as Kicks Count ⁷ who
operate local collections to financially benefit from packaging which is not
currently recycled through kerbside collections? I think it would be great if
our school rubbish could raise funds for charity.
.
3. Excessive energy consumption. I have noticed lights, computer
monitors and whiteboards being left on in empty class rooms. The school could
also save money of utility bills as well as reducing carbon footprint just by
turning electrical goods off when not in use.
.
4. General recycling. I am worried the school is not doing enough
to recycle common materials such as paper and card. Some classrooms have no
provisions to recycle these products and I am concerned they are being
unnecessarily disposed of in general waste.
.
We are taught if we try, we can achieve anything. We can all do
something to help our planet and our school could be leading the way in
encouraging staff and pupils to make “refuse, reduce, re-use, recycle,
repair, re-gift, recover and re-cycle” commonplace.
.
I would like to suggest the school forms a student environment
committee (which I would like to be part of) to share and implement ideas to
make our school more environmentally friendly. We could even start by designing
posters and leaflets to make sure everyone uses the recycling bins!
.
I hope you will consider my points and then we can all start to
make a difference.
[1] Rainforest alliance (2019) https://bit.ly/2klcmH9
[2] Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into the Ocean (2015) https://bit.ly/33BqXjN
[3] A global inventory of small floating plastic debris (2015) https://bit.ly/2kEIE0c
[4] World Wildlife Fund (2019) https://bit.ly/2IXm8ty
[5] IUCN https://bit.ly/2TRpCkn
[6] Ocean Crusaders (2019) https://bit.ly/1LSU9CX
[7] Kicks Count https://www.kickscount.org.uk/