Reducing Plastic at the School Level By Ellen Donker

It started with two fifth graders

Sylvie Brown and Aryana Pimplaskar (with Aryana's dog) prefer using their reusable water bottles instead of plastic.

Aryana Pimplaskar and Syl­vie Brown are fifth grad­ers at Delia Bolden El­ementary School. They met last year and became fast friends, bonding over video games. Now their friendship has grown over another shared interest: eliminating plastic water bottles from their school and, eventually, all schools in the South Orange-Maplewood district.

“This year, our teacher, Miss Altieri, made us pick three topics for our research-based argument essays, and we both picked plastic bottles,” says Aryana. “So we got to research a lot about them. After we finished, I came up with an idea to make a stand against them.” When Sylvie heard about turning their research into action, she was all in.

Calling their cause Nature’s Heroes, Aryana says the name came about “because we’re trying to save nature and we’re trying to help nature. And if you look at superheroes, they’re trying to save the world.”

Aryana and Sylvie at their booth at Mayfest. They garnered 150 signatures from people who want to help Nature's Heroes.

Sylvie says that instead of students buying wa­ter bottles at school, where they sell for $1, “we’re telling them to try to use refillable water bottles, or the boxed water or the aluminum cans, because those are actually reusable.” Aryana adds, “Otherwise, plastic – it’ll de­compose, but there will still be tiny little particles that seep in through the soil, then get into our water supply and then that will contaminate our water.” Ultimately, they hope the lack of demand for plastic water bot­tles will lead the schools to stop selling them.

The girls decided that the best way to bring at­tention to their stand was to conduct a peaceful march, slated to start on June 19 at 1:30 p.m. at Delia Bolden Elementary School and end at the Maplewood Municipal Building. “The first thing, honestly, is raising awareness,” says Sylvie. To get the word out, the girls set up a booth at Mayfest on Springfield Avenue on May 18. They succeeded in publicizing the event and getting 150 people to sign up as volunteers for the march and future efforts.

At school, the girls are hoping to make presen­tations to convince their classmates to ditch plastic bottles. “It’s going to be about how plastic water bottles are bad for you, and you shouldn’t drink from them and you shouldn’t use them,” says Ary­ana. “That might persuade them to stop. And then they won’t buy them at school and they might just use water fountains instead. So basically, it’s like a tiny boycott.”

The duo are hoping to continue growing aware­ness of Nature’s Heroes’ mission when school starts again in September, but by then they’ll be at differ­ent places: Aryana at Maplewood Middle School and Sylvie at South Orange Middle School. “We might start clubs in our separate schools,” says Aryana. “and then meet up at a park and do park cleanups.”

For more information about Nature’s Heroes, visit naturesheroes.life.

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Ellen Donker looks forward to seeing the difference Nature's Heroes can make in promoting reusable wa­ter