I always enjoy the first day after Labour Day. As a student, I looked
forward to going back to school (yes, it's true!) and as a parent, I enjoy
seeing my daughter head back to school, and thankfully she does too. It is a
time of new beginnings and of changing for the better.
And since it is that time of year again - here are some of my thoughts on
going back to school with a renewed commitment to green!
First, I would like to commend the New Brunswick Lung Association and
Department of Education for being the first province in Canada to implement a
no-idling policy for school buses. They worked together to introduce the policy
in September 2005, which covers about 1,200 school buses around the province.
There are many environmental as well health and economic of not idling.
Environmental benefits include fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other
pollutants. Health-wise, our children are exposed to fewer pollutants that can
contribute to asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, and various forms of heart
disease. And there is an obvious economic benefit - less fuel burned.
Environment Canada states that Canada's transportation sector produces a
quarter of all GHGs, a major contributor to climate change.
In fact, reducing vehicle emissions could be the most important move
Canadians make in reducing greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate
change.
So now that you know the school buses aren't idling, isn't it time to make a
commitment that you won't idle either, as you drop off and pick up your kids
from school and activities?
Another great way to reduce our collective environmental impact is to pack
litterless lunches - for both school and work. A number of families are doing
this now by making sure that none of the food and packaging in their lunchbox
end up in the garbage can at school.
Perhaps classes could challenge each other for the least amount of generated
waste from lunches? Reusable containers are inexpensive and certainly help cut
down on the amount of packaging used for lunches (e.g. plastic wrap and
baggies).
And yet another green action we can take for back-to-school is to focus on
environmentally friendly school supplies. Parents and teachers spend millions
of dollars of every August and throughout the school year on binders, paper,
pens and pencils. That is a lot of purchasing power.
Perhaps we can collectively start a campaign to encourage stores to provide
more environmentally friendly supplies, like placing more emphasis on recycled
paper and binders. And school districts that do bulk purchasing of school
supplies for their schools have significant purchasing power to influence
suppliers to provide the most environmentally friendly options.
And don't forget, one of the most important environmental decisions we can
make when it comes to our buying habits, is to make do with less!
This means use both sides of the paper, reuse left-over supplies from last
year, and tune our kids in to not expecting that they need to have everything
brand new at the start of each school year.
Yes, as a parent I understand that changing our children's expectations for
environmental reasons is a long term journey - but there is no doubt in my mind
that it is a worthy one!