Sustainability Fair

On Friday our school held a sustainability fair in order to spread awareness of how sustainability helps our world and to provide ways for us to help our environment. At the fair they were passing out cloth bags and reusable plastic cups. The cloth bags are for us to use when we are grocery shopping, so that we don't need to use the plastic bags anymore. The plastic cups are so that we will cut down our use of paper or disposable plastic cups. In order to get a reusable plastic cup you needed to answer a question that they asked you. All of the answers could be found at the fair, and once you answered the question correctly you would be rewarded with a cup. Also the cup can be used at the snack bar, and it only costs 50 cents to get it filled with soda instead of the usual 70 cent charge for a soda in a paper cup. The question that I had to find the answer to was: How long does it take styrofoam to decompose? The answer was 500 years.

The fair also had a lot of interesting booths. One interesting booth that I visited was about the water recycling program we have in Hawaii. The booth was specifically about the Honolulu Board of Water Supply's Honouliuli Water Recycling Facility, which is the largest water recycling facility in Hawaii.. It can produce approximately 12 million gallons of recycled water in one day. All of this recycled water travels through purple pipes because purple pipes are a signal for non-drinkable water. The facility produces two types of recyclable water. One type is only for industry. This type of recycled water doesn't have any minerals in it. The other type is for irrigation. It includes minerals in it. This type is mainly used on golf courses.

Another interesting booth that I visited was one about how our school is a sustainable school. One way that it is sustainable is that uses some pond water to water the lower fields. Also the cafeteria has recently started using biodegradable utensils. The plastic utensils that we used to use cost about 1.4 cents each, now the degradable utensils cost about 5.1 cents each. Even though this change is more expensive it is worth it because it is helping our environment. Also our school uses solar water heaters for the pool and locker rooms. When the panels aren't being used, the cost for heating the water is about $7,000. However when the panels are being used, the cost is only $1,500. This shows that being a sustainable school, can also save some money.

There were many more fun and interesting booths, including one where you got to actually plant your own tree to take home, but I listed the two most interesting booths in my mind. The sustainability fair was a great success!