Luke Moore Academy, the premier alternative high school in the District of Columbia (and also where I work)  is joining DCPS in its efforts to go GREEN by starting a recycling program at the school. Students recently gave a presentation at a school wide assembly and community event stating that:

“We have started a recycling program at Luke C. Moore that will minimize the waste generation and will facilitate recycling of materials. This initiative is student-led, and will allow our students to be the leaders of this program. Our desire to become more environmentally friendly and help lead DCPS in the Healthy Schools Act, as well as develop our peers into lifelong recyclers.”

Each classroom has a recycling box (that’s a pic of my box) that the Environmental Team picks up to dump in the container in the parking lot.

Here at Luke C. Moore, we are also concerned about our use of energy, so we  use Compact Florescent Bulbs, or CFL Bulbs, which are significantly more environmentally friendly than regular light bulbs. Our CFL bulbs last TEN times as long as regular bulbs, up to 8000 hours each – compared to 750 hours of those regular bulbs. The team has determined that our school had 350 CFL bulbs that are used on a daily basis. They  then compared those numbers to schools with a similar amount of bulbs, who use regular light bulbs. Our numbers confirm that Luke Moore is saving the District $5,000 a month by using CFL bulbs. On the emissions side, Luke Moore is outputting 4000 pounds less of Carbon Dioxide per year than schools our size.

In the classroom and in the field, the team has done a lot to make sure that our school is helping out our community! Please join us in helping to make DC an environmentally friendly city by, recycling and changing your light bulbs to new CFL Bulbs! And we hope this inspires you to start a program at your school too. Peace