FOR RELEASE

September 29, 2011

Program Will Honor Schools for Excellence in Environmental Education, Sustainable Facilities and Healthy Practices

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today invited states to take part in the inaugural year of the Green Ribbon Schools program, which will recognize schools for reducing environmental impact on their communities, promoting healthy school environments for their own students and staff, and offering high-quality environmental education.

The program was developed by the Department with support and advice from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

The award aims to encourage energy and resource conservation measures that can lead to cost savings and job creation; environmental and behavioral changes to promote health and productivity among students, staff and other occupants; and the use of environmental and sustainability education to support students’ preparedness for some of the nation’s fastest growing employment sectors

In a video message featured on the Department of Education’s blog, Duncan said, “Our goal is to encourage all of our nation’s schools and communities to work towards a future where school facilities have no adverse environmental impact, have a positive effect on students’ health, and enable students to become environmentally literate citizens who are well prepared for the 21^st century economy.”

Duncan’s announcement included details on the program’s eligibility requirements and nominating process. State education authorities will nominate schools based on their success in promoting healthy and sustainable environments and conducting environmental education. Nominated schools will also need to be in compliance with federal civil rights and federal, state and local health, safety and environmental statutory and regulatory requirements.

Duncan urged state and local school officials to review the various documents made available online today so that they might “get started right now in identifying their best candidates for the Green Ribbon award” for the first (pilot) year of program.

“Green Ribbon award guidelines focus on steps that will make our Nation’s schools healthier and more sustainable,” said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Quality.  “This program will help to ensure that our students are equipped to meet 21^st century demands and learn in an environment that is second to none.”

“With as much time as our children spend in school over the years, it makes sense for us to do everything we can to protect their health, encourage wellness, and make sure they are getting the most productivity out of their hours in the classroom. Green Ribbon Schools well help foster the changes needed to protect and support our students, teachers and school staff, and brighten their future in the process,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.

The Department plans to provide a nominee submission deadline in early 2012 and announce the first Green Ribbon Schools before the end of the 2011-2012 school year.

More information on Green Ribbon Schools can be found at http://www2.ed.gov/programs/green-ribbon-schools/

Bill to address health, economic and future conservation concerns by supporting state, local and federal strategies

Just days after American kids took to the outdoors for Halloween, two members of Congress have formally suggested we make it a year-round habit—but without the costumes and candy.

Rep. Ron Kind (WI) and Sen. Mark Udall (CO) introduced House and Senate versions of the Healthy Kids Outdoors Act today to support state, local and federal strategies to connect youth and families with the natural world, with an eye toward improving children’s health and supporting future economic growth and conservation efforts.

“The nature of childhood has changed, and there isn’t much nature in it,” said Larry Schweiger, National Wildlife Federation’s president and CEO. “National Wildlife Federation commends Congressman Ron Kind and Senator Mark Udall for introducing legislation that will strengthen the economy by getting Americans moving through recreation and active outdoor play.”

Getting Childhood Back Outdoors

The Healthy Kids Outdoors Act represents the spearhead of a national movement to get childhood back outdoors, a pointed response to the approximately 13 million U.S. children and adolescents who are obese and the increasingly screen-bound lifestyle that got them there. Just last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics cautioned that parents should limit their young kids’ TV and other screen time, and even the amount of time they spend watching TV near their kids. A recent report from Common Sense Media found that ‘screen time’ is higher than ever for American kids despite such warnings.

Recent studies have also shown that children between the ages of 8-18 are spending half as much time outdoors as they did 20 years ago, devoting an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to entertainment media in a typical day instead. By working toward partnerships to encourage outdoor recreation, Rep. Kind, Sen. Udall and supporters in OAK aim to put some of the nature back into childhood.

Nature as an Economic Driver

As American childhood—and recreation—has moved indoors, local and state economies have suffered along with it. The drop in outdoor recreation has translated into less revenue for outdoor retailers, local tourist destinations or “gateway communities,” and state fish and wildlife agencies.

On a national level, outdoor recreation contributes $730 billion annually to the economy (including $289 billion in retail sales and services), supports 6.5 million jobs and provides sustainable growth in many rural communities—one more reason to encourage it and make it accessible.

“[The bill] supports our vibrant outdoor economy, which is especially important in Colorado and to our rural mountain communities,” said Sen. Udall.

Shepherding the Conservationists of Tomorrow

One of the most important benefit of getting kids outdoors and in nature is the effect it may have on future conservation efforts.

A 2006 study (PDF) from Cornell researchers found that doing outdoor activities like hiking, hunting or camping as a kid positively impacts a person’s attitudes toward nature (and environmentally conscious behavior) as an adult, and that the most direct route to caring about environmental stewardship as an adult is participating in “wild nature activities” before the age of 11.

That report concluded that “youth spending so little time outside may also lead to a dwindling knowledge about biodiversity and… less pro-environmental attitudes and reduced participation in environmentally friendly behaviors as adults.”

(from RollingStone.com)

The world consumes 1 million plastic shopping bags every minute—and the industry is fighting hard to keep it that way

Shanghai landfill

By Kitt Doucette

American shoppers use an estimated 102 billion plastic shopping bags each year — more than 500 per consumer. Named by Guinness World Records as “the most ubiquitous consumer item in the world,” the ultrathin bags have become a leading source of pollution worldwide. They litter the world’s beaches, clog city sewers, contribute to floods in developing countries and fuel a massive flow of plastic waste that is killing wildlife from sea turtles to camels. “The plastic bag has come to represent the collective sins of the age of plastic,” says Susan Freinkel, author of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story.

Many countries have instituted tough new rules to curb the use of plastic bags. Some, like China, have issued outright bans. Others, including many European nations, have imposed stiff fees to pay for the mess created by all the plastic trash. “There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere,” the United Nations Environment Programme recently declared. But in the United States, the plastics industry has launched a concerted campaign to derail and defeat anti-bag measures nationwide. The effort includes well-placed political donations, intensive lobbying at both the state and national levels, and a pervasive PR campaign designed to shift the focus away from plastic bags to the supposed threat of canvas and paper bags — including misleading claims that reusable bags “could” contain bacteria and unsafe levels of lead.

“It’s just like Big Tobacco,” says Amy Westervelt, founding editor of Plastic Free Times, a website sponsored by the nonprofit Plastic Pollution Coalition. “They’re using the same underhanded tactics — and even using the same lobbying firm that Philip Morris started and bankrolled in the Nineties. Their sole aim is to maintain the status quo and protect their profits. They will stop at nothing to suppress or discredit science that clearly links chemicals in plastic to negative impacts on human, animal and environmental health.”

Made from high-density polyethylene — a byproduct of oil and natural gas — the single-use shopping bag was invented by a Swedish company in the mid-Sixties and brought to the U.S. by ExxonMobil. Introduced to grocery-store checkout lines in 1976, the “T-shirt bag,” as it is known in the industry, can now be found literally every­where on the planet, from the bottom of the ocean to the peaks of Mount Everest. The bags are durable, waterproof, cheaper to produce than paper bags and able to carry 1,000 times their own weight. They are also a nightmare to recycle: The flimsy bags, many thinner than a strand of human hair, gum up the sorting equipment used by most recycling facilities. “Plastic bags and other thin-film plastic is the number-one enemy of the equipment we use,” says Jeff Murray, vice president of Far West Fibers, the largest recycler in Oregon. “More than 300,000 plastic bags are removed from our machines every day — and since most of the removal has to be done by hand, that means more than 25 percent of our labor costs involves plastic-bag removal.”

The initial resistance to plastic bags came from manufacturers of paper bags, who saw them as a major threat. Environmentalists took up the cause of eliminating single-use bags in the 1990s, but they made little headway until a sailor and researcher named Charles Moore passed through the North Pacific Gyre in 1997 and drew international attention to the vast flood of plastic trash polluting the world’s oceans.

The first nationwide ban was enacted a decade ago in Bangladesh, after plastic bags clogged storm drains and caused massive floods. China issued a top-down order banning plastic bags in June 2008 — just two months before it hosted the Olympics — in an effort to reduce the amount of “white pollution.” Even though the ban is openly flouted by street vendors, it has still made a tremendous impact: In the first year alone, China decreased its use of plastic bags by two-thirds, eliminating some 40 billion bags — a move that saved the energy equivalent of 11.7 million barrels of oil.

The Indian city of Delhi boasts some of the world’s most aggressive legislation on plastic bags, not only fining individual users and businesses that hand out the bags but also threatening jail time for offenders and plastic-bag manufacturers. This year, Italy became the first European country to issue a nationwide ban on plastic bags, while Ireland places a 15-cent fee on every bag — a move that reduced usage by 90 percent in the first three months. All told, 25 percent of the world’s population now lives in areas with bans or fees on plastic bags.

While other nations have effectively cracked down on plastic bags, the U.S. government has left local communities to fend for themselves. In 2007, San Francisco became the first American city to ban plastic bags, and Washington, D.C., has imposed a five-cent fee per bag, cutting monthly use from 22.5 million bags to barely 3 million. Unlike attacks on plastic products such as Styrofoam, which were orchestrated by well-known environmental groups, the fight against plastic bags has been led for the most part by community organizers and concerned citizens who put pressure on their local businesses and governments. In recent years, a growing number of U.S. communities — from 30 townships in Alaska to the Outer Banks of North Carolina — have introduced some 200 anti-bag measures.

The widespread mobilization against plastic bags has sparked a counterattack by the plastics industry, which was slow to react to the rising tide of negative sentiment among consumers. Leading the charge to protect the plastic bag is the American Chemistry Council, an industry group whose members include petro-chemical giants like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical. With 125 employees and more than $120 million in annual revenues, the ACC and its members are using their deep pockets and extensive political connections to overturn bans on plastic bags, cast doubt on legitimate scientific studies and even file lawsuits against anti-bag activists. The council, which spent $8 million on lobbying alone last year, has also put together a front group called the Progressive Bag Affiliates, made up of top bag manufacturers like Hilex Poly, Superbag and Unistar Plastics.

Experts suggest new policy to reduce toxic chemical exposure and subsequent burden of disease

In three new studies published in the May issue of the journal Health Affairs, Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers reveal the staggering economic impact of toxic chemicals and air pollutants in the environment, and propose new legislation to mandate testing of new chemicals and also those already on the market.

Leonardo Trasande, MD, Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine and Pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, analyzed the costs of conditions – including lead poisoning, childhood cancer, asthma, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) – associated with exposure to toxic chemicals. Dr. Trasande and his team calculated the annual cost for direct medical care and the indirect costs, such as parents’ lost work days, and lost economic productivity caring for their children, of these diseases in children.

The researchers found the annual cost in the United States to be an estimated $76.6 billion, representing 3.5 percent of all U.S. health care costs in 2008. The breakdown includes: lead poisoning ($50.9 billion), autism ($7.9 billion), intellectual disability ($5.4 billion), exposure to mercury pollution ($5.1 billion), ADHD ($5 billion), asthma ($2.2 billion), and childhood cancer ($95 million).

“Our findings show that, despite previous efforts to curb their use, toxic chemicals have a major impact on health care costs and childhood morbidity,” said Dr. Trasande. “New policy mandates are necessary to reduce the burden of disease associated with environmental toxins. The prevalence of chronic childhood conditions and costs associated with them may continue to rise if this issue is not addressed.”

Dr. Trasande also reviewed an earlier study of 1997 data, which was conducted by Philip J. Landrigan, MD, and documented $54.9 billion in annual costs for childhood diseases associated with environmental toxins in the United States. Reviewing this prior analysis, Dr. Trasande found that while exposure to lead and costs associated with asthma had diminished, new chemicals and new environmentally-induced diseases, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, have increased the overall burden of disease. Dr. Landrigan is currently Dean for Global Health, and Professor and Chair of Preventive Medicine, and Professor of Pediatrics, at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

In a related article also in the current issue of Health Affairs, Dr. Landrigan and Lynn R. Goldman, MD, Dean of the School of Public Health at George Washington University, propose a three-pronged approach to reduce the burden of disease and rein in the effects of toxic chemicals in the environment:

·         Conduct a requisite examination of chemicals already on the market for potential toxicity, starting with the chemicals in widest use, using new, more efficient toxicity testing technologies.

·         Assess all new chemicals for toxicity before they are allowed to enter the marketplace, and maintain strictly-enforced regulation on these chemicals.

·         Bolster ongoing research and epidemiologic monitoring to better understand, and subsequently prevent, the health impact of chemicals on children.

“Implementing these proposals would have a significant impact in preventing childhood disease and reducing health costs,” said Dr. Landrigan. “Scant legislation has been passed to reduce the risks associated with childhood exposure to toxic chemicals in the environment. Even though only six chemicals have been banned, we have seen dramatic benefits from that action alone. The removal of lead from gasoline and paint is an example of the importance of this type of regulation.”

In a separate article in Health Affairs, Perry Sheffield, MD, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, evaluated the little-studied correlation between air pollution and infectious respiratory illness in children, and the resultant health care costs.

Dr. Sheffield and her team analyzed hospitalization data between 1999 and 2007 for children aged one month to one year who had bronchiolitis – a type of viral lung infection with symptoms similar to asthma – and monitored the air quality surrounding in the hospitals where the patients were treated. They found a statistically significant association between levels of fine particulate matter pollutant surrounding the hospitals, and total charges and costs for infant bronchiolitis hospitalizations.

Her team revealed that as the amount of air pollutants increased, infant bronchiolitis hospitalization costs increased by an average of $127 per patient. As a result, they concluded that reducing the average level of fine particulate pollutant by just seven percent below the current annual standard could save $15 million annually in U.S. health care costs.

“While more research is required to understand the full effect of air pollutants on infectious disease severity and health care costs, our findings are indicative of the tremendous impact new legislation on air quality control standards could have on the health of our children,” said Dr. Sheffield.