As the student voice of Bishop Blanchet,  we have noticed a problem within our society, concerning how we treat the world we live on and the negative effects of our treatment.

The Miter recognizes that Blanchet tries to be a green school, and we can thank our very own Green Team for that, but we, The Miter, do not think our level of “greenness” is quite enough anymore.

Plastic does not decompose, it lasts forever. That is why we recycle in the first place, so that we can turn plastic into something new, therefore reusing. As a school we don’t do a very good job of this recycling, composting and throwing away our garbage. That is why things like the Garbage Patch have formed.

It’s not just the individuals at Bishop Blanchet  have caused this individually, but as citizens of the world, we can not permit this to continue. The patch,  located in the North Pacific Ocean, has been collecting plastics over the years from the currents in our oceans pushing garbage and whatever else is in our oceans to this one spot. No one quite knows how many pieces of plastic there are, but scientist believe it’s more than they can count. It’s too hard to count the amount of plastic on the island or even estimate it because the plastic has been broken down into microscopic pieces in the sand and water.

The sizes of plastic ranges but the severity level is all the same, these pieces of plastic can kill our marine and wildlife. In fact it already is, there has been reports of seals washing up on shores dieing from digestion problems because of swallowed plastic or birds lying dead on our beaches and being cut open to find hundreds of pieces of plastics that the birds believed to be food.

On top of the digestive problems is the toxin that plastic carries BPA. This toxin can kill animals because their immune system isn’t as strong as the one humans have causing them to die. Scientists are still trying to find the risks of BPA in humans,  but they think that it could be the cause to some diseases.

Look at it this way: animals are eating the plastic and miraculously surviving.  Although they live through it, as the it proceeds up the food chain, the concentrations increase proportionately, causing harm to each step in the chain, including its final stop, the human diet.  All life suffers.

As BBHS students we can make a difference. We can start taking recycling seriously and sort our plastics from our non recyclable plastics. The impact of recycling just 1 water bottle could save a huge amount of space on our landfills (that are overflowing), and save some of the wildlife from dieing from that plastic you could of recycled. We can join the green team or support the green team in its drive to make Bishop Blanchet a greener school.

By recycling, the plastics can be broken down and made into something new a resourceful, for instance, an empty plastic water bottle could be recycled and turned into a plastic tupperware container to store food.

We would like to show you a different perspective on recycling and the effects of it. Recycling can hurt you, your environment, and the animals who live on this earth with you. When we don’t recycle we are killing not only animals but our environment and most of all the beautiful earth we live on.

The Miter believes we should extend our proper recycling, composting, and garbage system in our lunchrooms, we propose a more elaborate system. Which means increasing the number of bins all around the lunch room, color coating a lot more on specific things that should be put into each bin, and even having someone next to the bins helping people sort their food, garbage, and plastics.