Jeans don't just keep your legs warm!!

Levi Strauss is making big strides to becoming an eco-friendly company. It has started many projects to reduce the amount of clothing waste going into the landfills and the amount of unneccicary packaging being used. Levi Strauss was a 24 year old German immigrant who left the big city of NewYork for San Francisco. He took a small supply of dry goods with the intention of opening a branch of his brother's NewYork dry goods business. On May 20, 1873 they recieved U.S. patent NO. 139, 121. This date is now considered the official birthday of "blue jeans".

Levi Strauss is launching a $100,000 denim insulation fund which will provide grants to non-profit organizations who are currently undergoing construction projects. The fund will offset the cost difference of using recycled denim insulation instead of conventional insulation. The cost of the recycled denim insulation was easily three times the price of fiberglass.

Levi Strauss also has another project in place called "Care tag for our Planet" in cooperation with Goodwill. The tage on their products not only instructs consumers on how to clean their clothes will less environmental impact, it also encourages them to donate used jeans to Goodwill rather than throwing them out. According to Goodwill, about 23.8 billion pounds of clothing end up in U.S. landfills each year.

The company also has started some efforts to reduce the amount of packaging they use. They are reducing the number of "hangtags" on each garment from an average of two to three. They are also beginning to print size and care information directly onto garments. Here's a quote from the Levi Strauss company about reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the environment. "Through participation in the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), we have joined other global companies in calling for leadership and support from the U.S. administration and Congress to develop energy and climate legislation that promotes energy efficiency, encourages energy and climate innovation, and reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions".

This is great! Levi Strauss is really using their resources to make better decisions about what their company's doing to the environment. They have many more cool initiatives in place, you should check their website out at http://www.levistrauss.com/.

Du Pont And The Green Racing Team

Du Pont is a company that advances itself through the engineering of new products to help keep out environment healthy. Du Pont was founded in 1802 as a gunpowder maker. When Du Pont first began, they saw the “messiness” of manufacturing of many products, as Du Pont Grew, other companies grew in a “traditional way” as Du Pont grew in a “greener” way.  As the years progressed as well as the company advanced they began to set their sights on the broad term of manufacturing and engineering in a green way. Du Pont successfully covers many areas that we live in from plastics to fuel efficiency to water usage reduction. Water reduction is a major problem in the world as of the population of the planet is always growing. Plastics are another major health issue throughout the planet, plastics are being manufactured all around the world, but many cannot be recycled and end up in landfills and in the ocean, harming the environment the stay in and affect the health and beauty of the planet.  Du Pont is finding new areas of improvement to our environment everyday. Du Pont advertises in many ways, but NASCARS Jeff Gordon really advertises in a mild but know manner. Setting their sites on new goals everyday as the world advances, soon the world will be a healthier place to live in with the cooperation and advancements of other Green companies. As Du Pont and other green companies advances so will the health of our environment.

projects, projects every where but not a time to waste

The green team is in over it's head this week with projects. First, we have our drop boxes for our Planet Green fundraiser. These will be located at Eurekan businesses all over town. Mine will be at Emprise bank. Our second project is a way to reduce waste from products, like why do they need so many boxes for small video games? If we reduce the waste from the company, then we have to throw out less and landfills would not as often. This could also make it so we would have less garbage, the garbage trucks would be used less, and any gas that would have put more CO2 into the air. That was just a possibility if this was to go large scale. Our third project is using our class to tell everyone who the companies are, that are making reduction of their waste. This was our final project, thank you for finishing it for me.

Planet Green Fundraiser

Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? If you have an old cell phone that is no more use than a paper weight, think Planet Green.

How about those ink cartridges that cost a bundle and you have no way of disposing them safely after they run out? Think Planet Green.

Planet Green is a company that is taking out the middle man when it comes to recycling and buying recycled products. The Green Team has joined forces in a fund raising effort to clean up, stock up, and pay out!

Take a look at the locations below where you can drop off your used ink cartridges and old cell phones and support the Green Team in its collection efforts. For every item we send in, we will receive market prices for the recyclable materials. For every recycled ink cartridge you purchase from the site, we receive 15%!

Please help us in our collection efforts! You can find drop boxes at the following local businesses:

Flint Hills Feed

GW County Courthouse
GW County Hospital
Kansas Secured Title Co.
Loretta's Flowers & Candles
G&W Foods
Alan's Carpet & Flooring
Eureka Library
Alco Discount Store
New Beginnings
Emprise Bank

will not believe

In my house we use 875.42 liters of water every day. 875.42 liters of water, that is unbelievable. That is with every one only taking 6 min showers with 4 showers a day and again this is just one days worth of water. Add that up that is a lot of water in one week let alone one month just for one house. So here are some thangs i am going to do to help cut doun on my part and save water by not letting the water run wall brushing your teeth. All so dont let the water run in the shower if you are not in it. Put more clothes in the washer so you are trying to cut back on water us. If we try to save water now we will have it later for our kids to use... GO GREEN...

Water Audit

My household used same where around 1,635 liters of water over the weekend. One way I can save on water is to ask my parent not to do laundry every day. Another way I can save on water is to take less time in the shower. The last way I can save on water is to find another way to wash the dishes.

This weekend i did a water audit on how much water my family uses per day. We use around 528 liters per day. One way we could cut down on the water useige is to not take as long as a shower

Water usage

In my house the water use in a day is 1580 liters a day. I am going to try to reduce it by asking my parents if they can get a low-volume model shower head. Tell my family when they are brushing their teeth to turn off the faucets. Ask my parents to by a water purifier for drinking water.

the water audit

Over the weekend I conducted a water audit to see how much water my family used per day I was shocked when I found out that we used 564 liters per day I actually thought it would be more. I think that the way to cut down my water usage would be to take a shorter shower. Make it were I have to do laundry only once a week. I should try and not leave the water running while I am brushing my teeth.

Water Usage

I found out about how much water is used at my house per day. The toilet, it's not fancy or brand new or anything. It's a high volume model, about 26 liters per flush. It's flushed about 4 times a day. That's 104 liters per day. The shower, it's usually at an average of 2 liters per minute. With 7 minute showers and 2 showers a day, it all adds up to 28 liters per day. The faucet, I usually run it at about 1 liter per minute. I take about 2 minutes brushing my teeth and 3 minutes for drinking water. That is 5 minutes a day. At 1 liter per minute that's 5 liters a day. The dishwasher, about 2 loads a week and 60 liters a load goes up to 120 liters a week. Which is about 16.8 liters a day. The clothes washer, about 5 loads a week and 144 liters a load. That end's up being 720 liters a week. That's about 102.24 liters a day. All of this water usage ends up being a total of 238.54 liters a day.

Mixin' It Up!

Recently, the Environmental Science II class received a mechanical mixer through a generous donation from Dave Harris of Erie. This mechanical mixer will aid in the planned anaerobic decomposition of the High School's protein waste. What this means is that from now on, EJSHS will not throw away any food waste!!

This is very exciting as it adds an additional dimension to our goal of solid waste reduction in the district. The machine will mix the food waste with various sources of nitrogen (manure, grass) and carbon (paper). This mixture will in turn be spread into windrows to process.

The windrows will be monitored to make sure high temperatures are present for sufficient breakdown of the protein material. At the end of the process period (approx. 90 days), we will have a large amount of high-nutrient fertilizer!

This fertilizer is going to be bagged up in used feed bags, and thanks to Ranch Aid Inc., sewn shut for distribution!

Go Green Team!

Westar Energy Savings

On Thursday the 30Th we had a speaker from the West star energy efficiency department came to visit us. She had a lot to explain to us and how we need to start now by changing our ways. She said that if we start by shutting off our lights when we left our houses and unplugged our phone chargers it would save our family a lot of money. She also said that the L.C.D. flat screen T.V.'s cost us a lot also because they always use energy even when they are shut off because they still use energy. That is the one most thing that uses the most energy the second thing that uses the most energy is the electric water heater because they are always running also.

Westar Visit to greenteam

Yesterday a representive from Westar Energy named Tammie came to talk to the Greenteam about saving electricity. She showed us different bulbs and how much each used, one bulb only used 3 watts of electricity while a different one used 150 watts. We also learned that south east and central Kansas uses 25,000 lbs of coal each day. The coal we use comes all the way from Wyoming everyday, twice a day. Kansas only buys the good grade coal and stores some of it in its stock piles out in the yard. When the coal comes in it takes 6 hours for it to be dumped, one car at a time is flipped over and moved to the next car to repeat the process. The electricity that we use each day is outragious, a LCD TV that is not even on uses about as much as it uses turned of for 4 hours as when its not turned of for 20 hours. Even phone chargers that aren't even in use use a lot of electricity, and if we don't slow down our use of electricity Westar will have to build another power plant and raise our bills, again.

We recently had an encounter with a representative from Westar, which enlightened us on ways in which we can save energy in our homes.There were a multitude of different ways in which you could save energy in any home no matter the conditions. For one you can unplug appliances that you are not using. Any appliances that are left unplugged can suck up electricity to make for an expensive electric bill. There is also the method of turning of lights in rooms not being used. As simple as that sounds it tends to be a bad habit of many people and leaving lights on in any room not being used not only wastes electricity, it also deters the life of the bulb causing you to have to reach into your wallet even farther and pay for the expense of new light bulbs. When it comes to buying new lights for your home you have a large variety of choices rather than the classic tungsten bulb. You can invest in the new popular energy saver fluorescent bulbs or the longer lasting L.E.D. lights.

Westar Energy Electricity Visit

Recently we had someone from our local Westar Energy outfit come and visit.. She explained to us where there energy comes from and how we can reduce energy. But why would we want to reduce electricity use on Westar? Because it would reduce the amount of other energy sources they use, they care for the environment too.  She showed us some ways to reduce our energy and electricity by using different types of light bulbs, Fluorescent light bulbs are the common household light bulb. If we converted to l.e.d. light bulbs it would reduce energy watts being used and heat coming off the bulbs. L.E.D. bulbs may cost more and may still be in experimentation but soon in the coming months they will advance in they way they work and the light they put out. Here's a quick fact, the current fluorescent light bulbs put out enough heat to cook meals, they heat at up to 250 degrees F.  For anyone wanting to reduce cost of utilities bills each month, you can always replace a fluorescent bulb with a L.E.D. bulb and cut down on your energy bill, and everyone likes lower bills for more entertainment. Other options to save money are unplugging your TV and heating and cooling systems, also there is having monitoring systems for electricity  usage each day and monitor which are is being used the most with least outcome.

Energy Saver

Yesterday we had a speaker come to our school to teach us about conserving energy in our homes. She worked at Westar Energy so it was odd to me that she would want us to conserve energy instead of using more energy but she gave us some pretty good tips on how to not use as much energy in our homes. The biggest energy monster in homes is flat screen tvs. The second biggest energy monster would probably be the refrigerator. She told us that the best way to make sure the tv doesn't use as much energy is to simply unplug it while your not using it. You can also unplug everything else in your house while your not using it to conserve energy. We all have cell phones and we all use cell phone chargers to charge our phones, but none realizes that by leaving your cell phone charger plugged in the wall that your actually using energy for nothing. She encouraged us to find ways to conserve energy in our homes and I plan on taking her advice to unplug my cell phone charger from the wall every morning before I leave for school since im not even going to be using it. I also want to encourage my mom to unplug our huge flat screen when we're not using it to save more energy that's being waisted. We've already started coserving energy in our home by making sure all of the lights are off in our room before we go to school, my mom threatened us by saying if she found our lights on while we were at school she'd take all of our light bulbs out so we'd have to live in the dark. I think this methods really working because me and my sister never leave our lights on anymore when we're not in our room. I think the tips she gave us will really help my family in conserving energy and educating the public about our tips.

Weststar teaching us how to save energy

A member of Weststar energy came to talk to the Green Team about how energy saving can help you at home. One of the way you can save energy is by unplugging the TV before you leave for school. Why do this it doesn't use energy off, right? Wrong, anything that is plugged in is using energy, even off. Another way is use LED bulbs. How will that save energy? It last for 3o,ooo hours and only uses 3 watts. This is less than a blender uses. Why do we need to save energy? To cut the need for coal fired plants, the ones that give off green house gases. What about the renewable energy sources? Wind energy is the only practice that they can use as a supply. Why don't we build more wind farms? It is cheaper to use coal and natural gas, and the energy need to do that is more than the output. So if you want to save money just unplug the....