Environment News

ECO-WEEK EVENT 1: BUY A BAMBOO TOOTH BRUSH
Published: Sun 3 Mar 2019

ECO-WEEK - Knox Academy's annual week dedicated to raising awareness about environmental issues and encouraging the school community to embrace more sustainable practices - is NEXT WEEK! Yes, March 11-15 is Eco-Week and the Eco-Committee has planned SO MANY events for Knox students and staff! Keep an eye out on the bulletin and our twitter account for all the news! Here's our first event...

Our first event is bamboo tooth brush sales! After conducting an online survey with registration classes, the Eco-Committee found that students and staff were interested in buying eco-friendly toothbrushes. We'll be selling bamboo toothbrushes in the social area during lunch times on Wednesday 13 March and Thursday 14 March. And here's the best part - they're ONLY £2 each! That's an absolute steal for a toothbrush that uses no plastic whatsoever! You won't find that low price for a bamboo toothbrush anywhere else! The bamboo is pure and vegan, grown without fertilizers or pesticides, the bamboo is compostable, 100% biodegradable, and the bristles are made of BPA Free biodegradable nylon. These really are the most eco-friendly option for your teeth! We have a limited amount of tooth brushes with 3 types of bristles: soft, medium, and firm. If you'd like to pre-order your bamboo toothbrush to ensure that you get your preferred bristle type, please bring £2 to Miss Laudi this week and let her know which type you'd like. You can then collect your fancy new bamboo toothbrush during Eco-Week! Alternatively, buy your toothbrush during Eco-Week and if you'd like to buy some for your family and friends, we encourage that too!

ECO-TIP 17: DON'T WASTE FOOD
Published: Thu 21 Feb 2019

Food waste is a problem! When you buy or cook food only to throw some of it away, this impacts our environment in many ways:

  1. Food waste generates greenhouse gasses. In landfills, food is broken down by bacteria that produce methane, a gas which is contributing to the warming of our climate. Also, preventing food waste means we can conserve limited landfill space.
  2. It's estimated that about 18 million tonnes of food goes to landfill ANNUALLY in the UK. That's wasted money that people are spending! The key is to only buy as much as you need. By being smarter with food purchases and by eating everything, a family of four could save as much as £70 each month.
  3. Food requires a lot of resources to grow and transport. Many of the fruits and vegetables that we have here in the UK are not even grown here and they are imported from other countries. This means that we're consuming fuel in trucks and planes to transport food, but it all goes to waste if we're not actually eating the food. Plus, growing crops requires a lot of resources like energy and water too, which gets wasted along with the food if it's not eaten.
  4. Thousands of people around the world don't have enough food to eat on a daily basis. We should be preserving the food that we are so lucky to have!

Moral of the story: don't waste food!

KNOX ECO-COMMITTEE EARNS GREEN FLAG
Published: Tue 19 Feb 2019

Following a successful application to Eco Schools Scotland, Knox Academy's Eco-Committee has earned its first Green Flag! Last year, we ran a variety of initiatives including our annual Eco-Week, a clothing collection for Rock Trust, and a campaign to place recycling bins in most of our classes. We're excited to receive this award and we have big plans in the pipeline for this year's Eco-Week! Eco-Week 2019 is happening from March 11 to 15 and yes, there will be memes! Keep up to date with our projects here on the school website and on our Twitter account. If you'd like to get involved with the Eco-Committee (we're pretty awesome), come see Miss Laudi!

ECO-TIP 16: BROWSE WITH ECOSIA
Published: Wed 6 Feb 2019

Did you know that you can help plant trees just by searching on the internet? Sounds like a dream, but it's true! Ecosia is an online search engine that is FREE to use and it uses the money generated from ads to plants trees around the world. About 45 searches helps pay to plant a single tree. Ecosia currently plants trees in a number of countries, including Nicaragua, Colombia, Senegal, Morocco, Spain, Indonesia, Peru, and Madagascar. In April 2018, Ecosia reached a milestone - they planted 25 million trees since starting their project!

Searching with Ecosia is REALLY easy. In fact, it works just like Google. Setting it up on your computer is simple too! Go to the website HERE and make it your default browser. You can also bookmark Ecosia in your favourites toolbar to make it easy to reach. So go ahead, get searching with Ecosia, and help make the world a greener place!

ECO-TIP 15: BRING YOUR OWN LUNCH
Published: Wed 30 Jan 2019

A great way to cut down on unnecessary packaging is to bring your own lunch to school! It's no secret that our school canteen uses polystyrene take away containers which are terrible for the environment. These can't be recycled and sadly they end up in landfill. BUT if you pack your lunch for school in your own tupperware containers, you can avoid this waste. Alternatively, bring your own tupperware to the canteen for your food to be put in it. We can cut down on the rubbish generated by our school if we just think ahead!

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