Of Earth and Earthworms

A Feature Article by Ayesha Ashraf and Varnika Dhandapani

The Middle School 9th-grade class has designed projects to bring its visions of the future to Alsion. Six groups were tasked with minimizing Alsion’s carbon footprint. What was once thought of as unavoidable waste can now be reduced or repurposed through the incorporation of more sustainable inventions, items or systems within the school.

Replacing White Paper Towels with Recycled Brown Paper Towels           
Isabel Chiang and Anusha Sharangapani

White paper towels dominate every paper towel dispenser in Alsion. After doing some alarming research, Isabel and Anusha want Alsion to convert to brown paper towels. White paper towels take four months to biodegrade since they are bleached during production, while brown paper towels take a mere two weeks. Additionally, the processing factories where white paper towels are produced often release excess chlorine into our waterways. This seems like an obvious choice, but the project would be costly.  This change would add another 100 dollars to our annual expenses, but they hope that the school would be willing to make this switch and put the long-term environmental benefits above the costs.

Earthworm Bins for Compost                                                                                  
Ayesha Ashraf, Vibhav Darsha, Kabir Samsi and Avani Sethi 

Earthworm compost bins are a valued farming practice that creates highly nutritious soil we can use in our gardens. Earthworms are one of many decomposers that are able to convert decaying organic matter such as dead animals and rotting fruit into healthy, rich soil. Such soil is often produced commercially in the United States and bought by farmers and gardeners to help their plants grow. The group plans to obtain these worms from relatives who have successfully implemented these bins in their own home gardens. Students from each of the weekly gardening classes would be taught to maintain the bins. Earthworms would be working to turn our food waste into rich soil, and the Alsion garden would be healthier than ever.

Drip Irrigation                                                                                                              
Nicole Adams and Varnika Dhandapani

Over the past few years, Alsion’s garden has flourished with persistent weeding, watering, and care. However, when watering plants with a hose, like the ones used at the school, 20% of the water is actually wasted. Overwatering can lead to nutrient loss, soil salinization, and waterlogging. Drip irrigation would solve these issues. Nicole and Varnika want to implement drip irrigation systems throughout the hillside garden to provide a slow and steady release of water to the plants. Drip irrigation would help retain nutrient content in the soil. It would also slow down erosion caused by the pressurized release of water from the hose. In just a few weeks, Nicole and Varnika plan to order the tubing needed for the irrigation system and implement the system during weekly gardening classes.  Drip irrigation would free up watering time for weeding and planting. It would also keep the plants growing with the water they need.

Marker Recycling                                                                                                        Troy Powers

With a stationary carousel in each room, markers are being used more and more frequently at Alsion. When these markers run out, they would normally be thrown into the trash, creating plastic waste. Troy wants to implement a Crayola marker recycling system designed by Crayola itself. This method of recycling would  prevent excess plastic waste and reduce Alsion’s carbon footprint. This would also prevent the ink leftover in used markers from harming the environment. Though the ink is not particularly toxic as the markers are meant for children, government regulations prohibit the ink from infiltrating storm drains. The chemicals can permeate into animal habitats, specifically waterways. Troy plans to ship them through FedEx to facilities that recycle #5 plastic. From there, the markers are shipped to JBI. This company melts the plastic, so it can used in shampoo bottles and other such products. Troy would collect the markers in a designated box in the Art Room and weigh them weekly, to ensure that your markers are properly disposed of.

Community Recycling Systems                                                                                
Parsa Basseri, Siddharth Chavan, Rowan Tuttle and Alexander Zhou

A Community Recycling System, designed by Alex, Parsa, Rowan, and Siddharth, would add a recycling bin in each and every room of the school. Each bin would be labeled with bold text paired with images to direct students regarding proper disposal practices. Many students purchase food from the No Left Turn Here Cafe and often do not realize that the plates can be composted despite their wax seal. The labels would help guide students and provide them with more information to make the correct choices and reduce the waste we add to the landfills. The team running this project plans to teach the cleanup groups of each room to take out the recycling in each bin properly, and test runs would be conducted throughout the third to fifth cycles. If implemented properly, recycling bins in every room may be able to cut our landfill waste in half.

Low Flow Water Faucets                                                                                            
Zachary Crawford, Ayush Hindocha and Dmitry Pleshkov

Not only are Alsion’s current water faucets releasing more water than necessary, but they are actually exceeding state limits for the amount of water released. Ayush, Dmitry, and Zach plan to replace the water faucets in the Middle School bathrooms with faucets that release the legal amount of water. Although some students are concerned that less water means that people will wash their hands for longer, the group chose faucets that release water from a smaller area so that the flow is more concentrated and would clean off soap more efficiently.