Worcester Academy has converted its campus wide use of 5-gallon bottled water containers to filtered municipal tap water. The city of Worcester has some of the best municipal water in the world, while the filters act to remove sediment and residual chlorine that can effect taste. The conversion will reduce WA’s electricity use by approximately 16,000 kWh/year, and reduce our annual CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 11 metric tons. Relying on the city of Worcester’s municipal watershed for thousands of more gallons a year rather than using trucked in bottled water will further enable WA students and community members to develop social responsibility and a sense of place. For more information on Worcester water click on WaterQualityReport2008 for the 2008 annual water quality report. And for local and general water managment information click on Water 1 and water 2

On Tuesday, September 8th as part of a Community Harvest program, members of the class of 2014 planted late season broccoli and cabbage at Brigham Hill community Farm in Grafton, MA. The farm has exceeded 40,000 pounds of crops this season.

For more information go to communityharvest.shtml

Three trees native to the northeast were planted over the summer in honor of WA’s first Environmental Hall of Fame inductees. Pictured above are an eastern hemlock, balsam fir, and a river birch. See the WA Hall of Fame page for more information.

In collaboration with METECH international Worcester Academy recycled over 4,000 pounds of electronic waste in the spring of 2009. In 2007, the U.S. “recycled” 500 million personal computers. Planned obsolescence of consumer products is a central problem to this consumption-waste cycle. Inherently, our current use of electronics is unsustainable. Further,”recycling” electronic waste is problematic due to a potential lack of transparency and enforcement and participation of international governance instruments such as the Basel Convention, as well as  the sheer economic force of resource transfer, job creation, and profit potential between and within developing and developed nations. For more information about Metech and electronic recycling visit

Waste

Metech Field Trip

Metech International

Testimonies were given by various faculty, administrators, and students at this weeks Earth Day Assembly (click on “value of place” page above). First time WA Environmental Hall of Fame Inductees George Delaney, Don Irving, and Elizabeth Bowles (click on WA Hall of Fame page) were recognized and will be honored by the Environmental Club by planting three different native tree species on campus. Immediate actions steps were also covered by Environmental Club members:

1. Sign the Green Cup Pledge To commit to simple daily action steps that can make a difference (click on page above)

2. Ride the (soon to be named by vote) Bike for community services hours in Mr Segesdy’s room during extra help, and other periods by schedule.
-enter your suggested name for the bike by clicking into renewable energy posts.

3. Join the campus dialog on food and welfare (click on agriculture posts)

4. Stay tuned for announcements about the 2009 WA E-Waste Collection Program. For now you may want to start figuring out what you need to recycle and how you can get it to school.

This post was created to facilitate campus dialogue regarding where and how our food is grown/raised/produced and the related benefits and costs to workers, animals, environments, indivudal consumers, and local and collective communities be it a school, town, region, nation or the world. The initial impetus came from a student’s acute concern over animal cruelty. Though this thread need not be limited to animals, it may be a good place to start given the power of the video sent out to the community.

In beds of newspaper scrap and some starter soil (w/ sand for worm’s digestive system and to introduce decomposing microorganisms) food “waste” become worm food, which in turn becomes nutrient rich plant fertilizer. Above are photos of one of two vermiculture bins being used for the pilot program. Worms are fed nearly all food scraps except for animal products and they seem to like melons the most. The starter bin with newspaper will be converted within a few months to rich organic worm compost. The photo on the left depicts a processing tray in its last stages.

The formal 4-week long 2009 Green Cup Challenge proved to be challenging for WA; there was a slight increase in electricity consumption (2%) compared to the baseline calculated from the 2007-2008 winter. This increase is misleading as last years baseline was lower than previous years due to the influence of WA’s 10% energy drop for the 2008 GCC.

There were many concrete benefits to this years GCC. 150 participating schools from across the country experienced collective carbon dioxide reductions of over 2.4 million pounds. This ever-increasing network of schools continue to colloborate on all things sustainable. Here on campus 77 people from Worcester Academy signed the Green Cup Pledge (see above page), which calls on people to practice GCC habits 365 days a year.

Below is a letter written to the school from the Environmental Club co-president, Ryan Barry:

Hey everyone,

The results are in for the final week of the Green Cup Challenge.
In the final week of the GCC, we achieved our goal of reducing energy use from our baseline, reducing by 1%. Great job, and thank you for making this happen. Please remember that although the Green Cup Challenge is over, our school is dedicated to becoming more environmentally sustainable, and we should continue to reduce energy use when possible. The Environmental Club looks at the GCC as a year round event, and we encourage the school to do this as well.
We have signed a Green Schools Climate Commitment, in which we pledged to become carbon-neutral by 2020, and we need everyone to help out to work towards this goal. Also remember that conserving energy and using alternative forms of energy reduces pollution, and improves the quality of our air, water, as well as our health.
So far, 70 people have signed the GCC pledge. Thank you to those who have already signed. Our first goal is to reach 100 pledges, and our next goal is to get everyone in the WA community to sign it. Please sign the pledge if you have not done so already.

http://sustainablewa.wordpress.com/green-cup-pledge/

Thank you,

Ryan Barry
Co-President of the Environmental Club

WA has taken a step closer to making our indoor campus environment healthier  by introducing two Green Seal Certified cleaning products, Green Earth 11 (peroxide cleaner) and Green Earth 19 (glass cleaner),  for use by the custodial staff. The Betco Fast Draw dispensing device enables increased efficiency by automating the mixing of cleaning solutions, which in turn minimizes the dangers for the staff of being exposed to concentrated solutions.