green schools

In a practice I can hardly fathom, the Turkish government has been giving 155 million new textbooks each year to students, most of which are thrown into the trash at the end of the year rather than simply requiring they return them for use by next year’s crop of students.

Of course there’s not only an environmental cost to this enormous waste of resources, but an economic cost as well, with the books costing the Turkish public more than $800 million annually.
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When Hillside Intermediate began their butterfly garden back in 1997 they probably had no idea that one day it would grow to 7 acres worth of carefully reconstructed wildlife habitat devoted to biodiversity that would earn awards from institutions like the Jane Goodall Institute and National Wildlife Federation. And no one could have predicted the enormous damage inflicted by vandals intent on destroying their hard work, even plugging up the entry to a bluebird box with golf balls and killing the chicks inside.

Of course, there’s often a brighter side when caring, decent human beings work together. And the outp...