From The Jersey Sierran, July - September 2022
SCHOOL LIAISON REPORT
By Raghav Akula, School Liaison
Earth Day: It’s the one day where everyone in the world is expected to keep the health of the planet in mind—but it’s only one day. Earth Day shouldn’t be an excuse to neglect the environment for the other 364 days of the year. If we’re serious about preserving the mesmerizing diversity of this planet, we need to treat every day like Earth Day. That means that in every town we need to be doing everything we can to protect the environment.
In my hometown—a small, suburban community called Moorestown—individuals of all ages and the government alike are working together on environmental sustainability, even if it’s just one step at a time. The mayor has declared that the theme for 2022 is “Year of the Environment,” with particular attention paid to sustainable food and energy use, reducing single-use plastics, and championing cleaner air. The Recreation Advisory Committee, of which I am a member, is working to advance the mayor’s goals, and in the Sustainable Energy Subcommittee, we’re making remarkable progress by proposing ways that recreational facilities around town can incorporate clean energy into their operations, ranging from cantilevered solar panels over parking lots to even geothermal fuel. We’re hoping the town will embrace an energy plan for our public buildings and lands based entirely on renewables.
Cleaning Up Plastic Trash
Over in the single-use plastics subcommittee, we’re trying to combat the trash that litters our parks. Too much plastic waste is strewn across our public lands, and volunteers have to clean it up. Our main project is to display all the trash that we pick up around town at a booth on Moorestown Day, in June, when we celebrate our community. In May, we organized a cleanup at one of our biggest parks, and we will use the trash we collect there to display the extent of our plastic pollution issue. Hopefully, this will help ingrain the plastics crisis as an issue common to all of us and promote the idea of reducing single-use plastic consumption.
But these projects are just the beginning. In a few months, some of my classmates and I will take over the reins of the Outdoor Service Club, which serves as the nexus for coordinating cleanups and beautification of parks, preserves and trails in Moorestown. Recently, I helped out at a local creek by removing invasive plants that threatened the forest around it, and a few of us planted flowers at the entrance to a park in preparation for spring. These are small, relatively painless projects, but it would make a huge difference for sustainability if every town had this kind of dedicated effort.
If young people in my town can do so much, the same can be accomplished in other towns. As a youth intern under the LEAD program of the humanitarian nonprofit Sewa International, I get the opportunity to participate in a range of environmentally focused projects all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania. An eight-acre farm in Cream Ridge called Ramblin’ Sol Organic Farm offers us the opportunity to engage in sustainable farming, avoiding harmful pesticides and emphasizing regenerative agriculture. At Neshaminy State Park in Pennsylvania, we help a small nonprofit called Excel Events plant trees as a riparian buffer against the threat of floods from the Delaware River—another essential climate mitigation measure.
From a policy and grassroots-organizing perspective, there are practically endless opportunities to get involved in the environmental movement. In whatever ways we can, whether it’s influencing the government or participating in cleanups, we need to be actively protecting and fighting for the future of the planet.
Join the Sierra School Coalition, a network of young people across the country working to protect our generation’s future. To get involved, contact NJ Chapter School Liaison Raghav Akula at rakula1225@gmail.com or visit the coalition webpage at www.sierraclub.org/youth