This year we all agreed to participate in activities that would be a part of the solution to global warming instead of contributing to it. We challenged all of our students to try to bring litterless lunches for the whole year. This has been a great success and we have seen an amazing reduction in the amount of garbage the students produce each day! We are now challenging the students in the local high school to pack litterless lunches. We even made posters for them to put up as a reminder.

Postcard designed by Millbrook students.

Our main project this year was our packaging reduction campaign. After a brainstorming session, we decided to take action! Many students agreed that products are over-packaged unnecessarily. We began our project by conducting research into various companies and organizations that we would be able to contact about their packaging. After conducting our preliminary research, we decided to write letters to our local MPs and MPPs, as well as selected corporations and environmental organizations. Overall, we received responses from about half of the individuals we sent letters to, though many of the corporations whose packaging policies were absolutely unacceptable did not respond.

Millbrook students at the "Peterborough Farmers Market."

We also worked to raise awareness in our community about this issue. We created postcards to the premier and distributed them to our community at the local Farmer´s Market. We had a very positive response! One woman at the market requested a whole stack of cards to be made available at her booth. Another, who is a teacher, asked if she could use our idea so that her class could write letters to the Premier on the issue as well.

We really enjoyed working on this project and we hope that we have had a positive impact on our community. Though targeting packaging may seem like a small step, it is an important step in the right direction. We all have become more conscious consumers, we all pack and eat healthier lunches, and hopefully our letters to some major companies will impart some level of consciousness as well.

Janice Wing