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Green Living Tips at School

Environmentally- Friendly Lunch Box

Environmentally- Friendly Lunch Box

While most of us think about our homes and our cars when we hear the words ā€œgreen livingā€ we can also do our part with our children and their school day. Green living really means thinking about the environment in your daily life and finding ways to reduce your carbon footprint and your reliance on gas-guzzling, energy-guzzling items.

Here are six simple ways that you can send your children off to school with a greater sense of environmental awareness and with an understanding that they, too, can work to reduce their environmental impact on a daily basis. First of all, as the kids get ready to head back to their classes, they are probably expecting new clothes, new classroom furniture and new play equipment in the school. You can help to save money and the environment by doing a clothing swap with friends or by visiting second hand stores. If you absolutely must buy new clothes, check out the stores that have natural fibers and that care about sustainability and the environment.

Give your kids reusable lunch boxes and reusable containers for their food. If you think about how many disposable bags are used each day in schools across America, itā€™s no wonder that our landfills are filled to capacity.

Think about how your kid gets to school and how much gas this trip costs. Can you form a carpool to get your kids there? Is the school close enough that you can walk your child there or ride bikes?

Use gently used school supplies. Look around the house before you go out to buy those shiny new supplies ā€“ you just might have most of the items you need already in the house.

Send your kid with a reusable water bottle. They get thirsty during the day and should certainly have something to drink ā€“ but they donā€™t need a new container every day.

 

The Funding Factory Helps Schools and Churches Raise the Money They Need

As recycling gains momentum in the United States, more and more organizations are taking advantage of the trend and creating opportunities to raise money for their institutionā€™s many needs. One innovative company, Clover Technologies, has instituted a program called Funding Factory. Clover is the largest remanufacturer and recycler of consumer imaging supplies, such as inkjet and toner cartridges, in the world. By recycling not only cartridges, but also cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras and other devices, Funding Factory can help schools and churches raise the money to purchase the things they need, such as church furniture or podiums.

Watch the following video to see how one church and its affiliate school joined together with Funding Factory and raised $22,000 over the past 12 years simply by recycling.

School Furniture to Protect Our Planet

Innovative Furniture Ideas Can Protect the Environment

Innovative Furniture Ideas Can Help Protect the Environment

As technology develops, parents and school districts are becoming more involved in environmental efforts. Preserving our planet for future generations is undeniably important, and green living and recycling efforts have more immediate effects as well, including cleaner, healthier learning environments.

According to GreenSeal.org, ā€œgreen schools have a considerable impact on improving student health, the environment, student and teacher performance and decreasing operating costs.ā€ The organization goes on to explain that shifting product and service purchases to be more environmentally friendly is a good place to start.

For example, certain paints, stains and finishes are created to meet environmental requirements without compromising performance. School desks and chairs can be colored with these products, which have limited levels of VOC (volatile organic compound) to minimize indoor and outdoor air pollution. Toxic chemicals commonly found in paints and stains, including benzene, formaldehyde and heavy metals, are forbidden. Green paints are also contained in packaging made from recycled materials.

 

Green Does Not Refer to Just the Color of the Furniture!

Green Furniture

Lawn Furniture Made of Recycled Materials

It is possible for any type of furniture, whether it is school lockers, cafeteria tables or any other variation of the furniture we all use every day, to be eco-friendly. Here are some useful tips on how to join in the growing move towards reducing waste, saving resources, and thereby protecting our environment.

Tip One: Consider purchasing furniture made of recycled materials, such as plastic or metal, rather than wood. There is a move among environmentalists to switch to metal and plastic furniture for several reasons. Recycled materials need less processing, and use less resources. Check if the furniture you are thinking about buying can be repaired easily to help it last longer. Also, when the item does come to the end of its useful life, can it be dis-assembled easily for another bout of recycling?

Tip Two: Rattan is the ā€œNew Wood.ā€ Wicker furniture comes from a type of palm tree that looks more like a vine than a tree, called ā€˜rattan.ā€™ It is easier to harvest rattan than wood, and easier to transport. The tools needed to harvest it are also simpler. Rattan also grows more quickly than almost all other tropical wood. Rattan is lightweight, extremely durable, stands up to all kinds of weather, and itā€™s quite flexible. Therefore, consider rattan furniture as an alternative to wood.

Tip Three: Bamboo is another material which can be a good alternative to wood. A type of a grass, bamboo can come in many colors and sizes. It is strong and grows fast, and is a generally versatile material. It is basically the ā€˜poster plantā€™ for green construction materials, bring used in all sorts of creations, from floors to clothing, and even in building construction. One thing to be careful about when purchasing bamboo furniture: most bamboo is grown in China where pesticide use is common. Before you purchase, ask your retailer about this issue.

One last tip: Buying traditional strong wooden furniture that is made to last many years, perhaps several lifetimes, can also be environmentally friendly if it only disrupts the environment once and then is handed down for generations.

Whatever you choose, enjoy your furniture!

 

Energy Efficiency in Schools

Schools today spend a large portion of their budget on energy costs. School buildings, dormitories and buses all use vast amounts of fuel and electricity, and the consumption is starting to take its toll on the environment, and on school funds.

Here are several programs aimed at increasing energy efficiency in schools:

From Construction Site to Home: Pallets Become Furniture

Pallet Furniture

Furniture Made from Pallets

You know what pallets are- they are wooden, movable platforms used to stack, store and move products. They are especially useful when using a forklift to move and store these goods. When pallets get too old to fulfill their mission, then what happens to these otherwise perfectly good pieces of wood? The answer is: In the right hands, just about anything can happen to these versatile, strong, building blocks for all kinds of furniture.

Donā€™t be surprised if you donā€™t see discarded pallets turning up as folding chairs, school desks, or lounge furniture. Many designers have been working with pallets, and have come up with some great ideas for recycling them. In particular two British designers launched a company in 2010 whose first project was an innovative design for a folding chair. Later they went the next step to creating a folding table. Both items can lay flat and are easy to store.

The designers patiently and painstakingly remove every nail and carefully take apart the wood and save the nails. When rebuilding the pallets into their folding chairs they reuse the nails and the wood, never using new wood or even new pallets. All the pallets they use are discarded and canā€™t be re-used as pallets. Any leftover wood from the pallets is made into another type of chair, which they call the X-Chair.

The designers are currently running a Kickstarter campaign, which can be viewed here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/253161877/give-a-pallet-a-home

Students Learn About Green Living through IXG

The idea of preserving our planet should not be overlooked, nor should it be considered a foreign or unrealistic concept. It is so very important to educate our children about their impact on the environment, and how to live responsibly.

Here is a great example from Fisher Elementary School, who implemented the IXG endeavor with the Green Education Foundation in an effort to teach its students about green living:

 

Say Goodbye to Plastic Bags

Reusable Containers Are Convenient and Protect the Environment

Reusable Containers AreĀ  Easy to Use, and Protect the Environment

Every day, American kids could be doing more for the environment during the school day. When they sit down in their classroom chairs and open up their school lunches, they donā€™t realize what a difference they could be making with one small change in their habits. Plastic bags are not biodegradable and they clog waterways and end up in landfills. They can take as long as a staggering 1000 years or more to break down and they will continue to pollute the soil and water during that time. Scary details.

Americans actually throw away almost 100 billion plastic bags each year and only 1-3% of these are recycled. So, what can kids be doing differently as they open their school lockers and take out their lunch bags? They can get rid of every single plastic bag that they have and replace these with reusable containers. Rather than putting an apple in a plastic bag, put it in a Tupperware container; those grapes and that sandwich can go in reusable containers as well.

The school lunch bag should be reusable as well. Today there are so many cute, insulated lunch bags that kids can enjoy totting to school each day and then bringing back home. They donā€™t need to use plastic bags to hold their lunches ā€“ rather, they can enjoy this recyclable bag each day. And, students should have a water bottle that they reuse as well, rather than throwing away plastic cups each day or using a new water bottle every time that they start the school day.

The impact on the environment that these simple changes can make is huge. The impact and inconvenience to each child is almost non-existent. For this reason, when you look at the cost-benefit ratio, it just doesnā€™t make sense to continue using plastic bags, throw away lunch bags and non-reusable cups. Itā€™s time for a chance and Americaā€™s kids can be on the front line of that revolution.