Author: adviser

Being a sixteen year old girl, it is hard for me to go out at night and stay out past dark. During the summer, there is still light outside around 8 p.m. This whole time change does have major flaws and some advantages, although the advantages are more for some of us lazy peeps. Many of us, I know, struggle with getting out of bed in the morning. It’s harder to wake up when the mornings now seem so gloomy, and I wake up to a really depressing night sky after my evening nap. Apart from the one hour taken away from my glorious sleep schedule, I have less time to finish my daily chores.

For the majority of people, our schedules consist of waking up early going to school and after school attending various activities that depend on the sun’s rays of light. By the time that we get out of school, the sun seems to shine as if it were five in the afternoon in the summer. By the time you get home, there are chores that need to be done, other activities to accomplish and places to go. Some high school students do not drive yet, so we have to take other sorts of transportation and this makes it dangerous because you never know what you may encounter on this small “adventure.”

Long Beach isn’t the safest city, including this area in which Poly lives. Nowadays even going to a store on the corner is dangerous. This issue of violence changes many things and affects us all in many aspects. Parents now are not letting their children go out and honestly, I agree with this matter. When a parent tells you, “Don’t go out after 7,” or even, “ I want you home by 6,” it doesn’t mean that they don’t want you to be going out with friends or they don’t want you to be enjoying your life, but they are trying to prevent things that may happen.

At the end, yes we may not be able to change the time back, all we can do is wait. All there is left to say is be careful because we all know that we live in a pretty messed up world and no one knows what awaits for us outside our door.

Recycling has become a big issue in the 21st century. Americans produce an average of 4.4 pounds of trash per person every day while the rest of the world produces only 2.6 pounds of trash per person. Out of the 254 million tons of trash produced by Americans in 2013, only 87 million tons were recycled. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 75% of the American waste stream is recyclable yet only 30% is thrown into a recycle bin. This has caused a need for increase in recycling programs at schools around the country.

However, I still continue to notice problems at Poly when it comes to recycling and campus cleanliness. It frustrates me that there are no recycling bins in the quad. Think of all the items that could be recycled but are thrown into garbage bins, contributing to the 254 million tons of trash that we Americans produce every year.

This is not Poly’s fault alone. LBUSD does not provide funding for the blue recycling bins in select classrooms, said Libby Huff, the PacRim business teacher. The National Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) paid for the blue bins and Huff said the cost was about $1,000.

LBUSD does not provide funding to its schools for recycling. Janitors are not paid to take care of school recycling. Recycling on campus is completely up to the students and the staff.

One frustrating thing about the recycling on campus is that only paper, bottles, and aluminum cans can be placed in the bins. Think of the other items that could be recycled, such as plastic bags, styrofoam, milk cartons, and plastic containers. Long Beach takes all of these items through their recycling program. So why are we only allowed to recycle cans, bottles, and paper at school?

It is very disappointing to hear that the district does not provide recycling funds to schools. I understand that they have a lot of expenses, but the environment is more important than those fancy Chromebooks students, including myself, are using.

Instead of buying all those laptops, why not use the money to provide recycling bins and programs to all the schools in the district? Why are more teachers not interested in getting involved with recycling at school?

We have environmental science teachers who lecture about the environment, air pollutants, trash, and global warming, yet our school is still far from being a clean and environmentally friendly campus. Practice what you preach!

Last year, sophomore Cosmo Hebert and I tried to make a change in the school concerning the use of plastic straws in the student store. We wanted to replace them with paper straws.

I know what you are thinking, “How could the straw not get all soggy and gross.” The company Aardvark makes paper straws that are durable and are environmentally friendly. We went to the student store armed with straw samples and pricing. Unfortunately, the student store was uninterested and the idea of paper straws did not get started. The paper straws only sell for about 2 cents more than plastic straws. The drinks that are sold with a plastic straw retail for $1.

We also wanted to get styrofoam cups banned from the student store. The student store now uses paper cups, because of a district-wide ban. Although these paper cups are still not the most environmentally friendly it is a step in the right direction.

I want the students of Poly to speak up if this concerns them too and talk to the principals and teachers about this.