KALB hosted a luncheon for city and county school administrators, green team leaders, and public officials recently in an effort to encourage increased recycling education and activities within our schools.
Why is this Important?
Since the 1920’s and 1930’s when mass production became popular, consumers found less expensive products on store shelves. More people could now afford to buy these products. That was a wonderful thing, wasn’t it? Manufacturers discovered that they could keep the price low by using lower quality parts, which would then malfunction or become less desirable leading consumers to buy “new and improved” products.
Advertisers then began to train us, the consumer, to want these new and wonderful products. Well, just about the time we learn to use our new phone, computer tablet, or television set advertisers are trying to convince us that we can’t live without the bigger and better version!
Landfills
So where did we toss all of our outdated, no-longer-working, no-longer-fashionable stuff? Most went into the trash can, which was then hauled to a landfill and covered over with dirt never to be thought of again…or so we thought.
In 2006, each American man, woman, and child produced on average 4.6 lbs. of garbage per day. Yes, per DAY. Landfills began filling up fast and new landfills were needed. The cost of extracting raw materials from deep inside the earth is very labor intensive and became very expensive. How long could we continue this process before depleting our natural resources?
Today many old landfills are being mined for recyclable materials, particularly metals. We finally realized that we have been throwing away materials that could be used again and again with less cost and a gentler impact on our environment.
So Why Target Students?
What better place to start than teaching our children the importance of protecting our environment through responsible use of our natural resources? Young children have open hearts and open minds and are willing to listen to the information provided without preconceived ideas, and before bad habits have become a way of life. If we are going to impact our children through education, it is important that school administrators and leaders understand and support these lessons.
KALB is a wonderful resource to our schools and to individual teachers. It is our hope that we will continue to have a positive impact on our local and global environment by providing knowledge through educational programs.
We welcome any teacher or school administrator to contact us for more information on how we can be of service.
By: Lynne Hart
