WA-Oak Hill CDC CFL Drive

As part of the WA-Oak Hill CDC CFL drive to distribute over 2,000 energy saving CFL bulbs to the school and neighborhood community, students from WA and North High School spent three afternoons installing bulbs into neighborhood apartments along Providence and Aetna St as well as in units of a senior residence building on Upsala St.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL’s) use up to 75% less energy than incandescent bulbs, and last up to ten times longer. CFL bulbs reduce greenhouse gas emissions, smog, acid rain, and mercury pollution. From the government’s Energy Star website: “If every American home replaced their 5 most frequently used light fixtures or the bulbs in them with ones that have earned the ENERGY STAR, we would save close to $8 billion each year in energy costs, and together we would prevent the greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from nearly 10 million cars.”

However they need to be managed properly when broken and recycled when spent. See CFL Bulb Links to the right.

For a direct list of locations in Massachusetts for recycling old bulbs click on RecyclingCFLs

4,000 lbs of Electronics Recycling

In a collective effort the Environmental Club co-president, Steve Wright, Mr. Carroll’s Environmental Science Classes, members of the Maintenance Department, and Mr. Delaney filled up two school vans with over 4,000 lbs of T.V.’s, computer monitors, hard drives, and a long list of other electronics for drop off at MeTech International, a world leader in management and recycling of electronic materials with a 32 million pounds per year capacity, located along the historic Blackstone River.

In 2007, the United States placed an estimated 500 million PC’s (11 million tons) into the “waste” management stream. Metech performs reuse, recovery, and reclamation of parts whereby precious, ferrous, and toxic metals (cadmium, arsenic, lead, etc.) as well as plastic, glass, and cardboard are recycled, burned for energy, or isolated and manged as hazordous waste, The end result is a dramatic reduction in air/soil/water pollution, deforestation, strip mining impacts, and fossil fuel and energy consumption. For more information on Metech go to METECH and WAEnvironment

Renewable Art

Reusing random materials for their sculpture projects Ms. Duff’s students inspire us to see the potential in creative approaches to sustainability actions during a recent exhibit in Walker Gallery.

Renewable Energy at WA

The solar demo displayed above is 3, 12 watt portable panels set up on the Radar Quad. Each panel converts light radiation energy into electrical energy as dc current which charges the same batteries used with the pedal-a-watt. Pictured above students ride the “pedal-a-watt” bike which generates electricity that charges a battery which in turn can charge phones, laptops, the gym stereo, etc.

WA’s First Earth Week April 22-25

The Environmental Club and WA were busy this week with a host of events and actions steps including
1) Upper School Assembly Presentation by the Environmental Club
2) Off-campus CFL Bulb Drive
3) Film Series: Crude Awakening
4) Kettle Brook #2 Clean Up
5) Solar and Bike Powering/Demo Stations

In the assembly the Club covered a review of climate change and greenhouse gas dynamics and how each of us are connected to and the impacts of our of food, power, fuel, and waste use/production. The Environment Club distributed approximately 500 energy saving bulbs to the WA off campus community. Thursday night the Club hosted a showing of the documentary “Crude Awakening”, the first in a series of films covering sustainability issues, which addressed the realities and complexities of peak oil. Finally, students rode bikes and solar panel stations were built that powered batteries which in turn charge computers,etc.

A. Specific steps to be taken (as outlined on Academy News)
1. CFL bulbs
2. Green Start ( http://www.massenergy.com/options.html )-Non-National Grid Members can sign up for the New England Wind Fund
3. GCC Habits
4. Sign up for the Soup, Salad, Bread Meal
4. Unplug all unused electronics
5. Fill up your tires
6. Drive Speed Limit
7. Buy Local/organic Food- Compost

Kettle Brook Clean Up #1

WA Students

Parker-Metals

Kettle Brook Reservoir #3

Kettle Brook Collage

Kettle Brook Res. #1

Kettle Brook Res #2

Kettle Brook Falls

Old Landfill

Kettle Brook Res. #4

As part of their school community service obligation, 10 WA students spent a cold Saturday morning earlier this spring pulling the likes of tires, metal scrap, a metal barrel, and a car fender from the Kettle Brook and its banks as the brook flows along the edge of New Balance Fields.

The Kettle Brook is one of the major northern headwaters of the Blackstone River. One of the most fascinating elements of the brook is how it connects four of the city of Worcester’s drinking water reservoirs before flowing into Cherry Valley, the southwest corner of the city, along New Balance Fields, through an industrial corridor on route to the Blackstone. Pristine pictures of the Kettle Brook Reservoirs, above, obscures the impacts of nearby roads, old land fills, agricultural land, and tributary streams running through neighborhoods. (Click on photos for more details).

WA Anti-Idling Initiative

W.A. took a step closer to adhering to MA anti-idling laws. Roger Randor, head of maintenance, placed WA’s first anti-idling sign on the Dorchester Street entrance fence. The next step is to build on demonstrated interest among the Parent Council to begin a grassroots movement for education and collective participation along with increasing signage. For more informationa go to:

http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/90-16a.htm

Idling vehicles waste as much 3.8 million gallons of gasoline a day in addition to increasing air pollution that negatively impacts our health. Typical estimates state that idling for more than 10 seconds wastes fuel, produces more air pollution, and wears down the engine faster than turning the engine off. For more information how to save gas and improve our air quality go to

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml