Vision

The Bayridge Secondary School Water Bottle Awareness Workshop was hosted in the fall (Sept. 18 & 19) of 2023 by Brenda Scarlett’s period 3 World Issues class and The Bayridge ECO Team. The workshop teaches grade 9 students through an interactive lesson including a video and kahoot that it is important to use reusable water bottles instead of plastic. Grade 9 students are each given a reusable water bottle, add their name and pledge to use them at the end to help be environmentally responsible. The water bottles are part of the grade 9 spirit package but many students are not able to purchase said spirit packs so, with this grant, all grade 9 students (160 students) were given water bottles to use!

Action

Inspiration: Students learned about the scarcity of water, water issues and viewed the documentary Tapped.
Actions: Students researched why reusable water bottles are more sustainable to use and less of an impact on climate change. By not using single-use plastic products, students are reducing their impact on the planet. Students then created how best to get across this message by planning a workshop for incoming grade 9 classes. There were 8 classes over 2 days that experienced the workshop.
Importance to school community: This workshop has been occurring annually since 2010 and has taken many forms. It continues to evolve to what it is today. Because of the school’s commitment to reusable water bottles, we then asked the school board for refillable water stations in the school. Starting with only 1 at the main entrance, the school now has 3 downstairs and 1 upstairs with another station under construction upstairs in May 2024. This is only occurring because all students in grade 9 have reusable water bottles and over the years, all students have reusable water bottles so having water refill stations makes the more sense for all students to stay hydrated throughout the day.
Next steps: Ecoteam students continue to lobby the school board to take away any plastic bottles in the vending machines but this has not been achieved as of yet.

Reflection & Celebration

Final results: This action project has made a real difference to the school’s sustainability plan in their reduction of plastic water bottles. Students regularly use reusable water bottles which then reduces the number of single-use plastic bottles being used. It is a win-win for the planet.
Celebrations – When you check out the refill stations – we see the following – in the New Wing – 70,888 – helped eliminate waste from disposable plastic bottles, Main entrance – on Jan 19th 237, 888 bottles eliminated from landfills but counter must have been changed back to zero since as of May 21st, another 140, 495 bottles were eliminated from landfills and finally upstairs – 47, 250 bottles eliminated from landfills. (Two refill station counters are not working at present.)

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