Why dedicate just one day a year to the planet? We say, every day is Earth day. That’s why we dedicated April’s #YourBizYourTown to sustainability with special guests: Greener Grads, Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids, Kendall College of Art and Design at Ferris State University (KCAD) and the West Michigan Environmental Action Council (WMEAC).
Just this week, a new green initiative launched in our back yard – Greener Grads. Greener Grads in partnership with Goodwill Industries of Greater Grand Rapids, KCAD and WMEAC is dedicated to collecting 1,000,000 graduation gowns to recover, repurpose and reuse.
Did you know more than five million graduation gowns are worn by high school and collegiate graduates annually? For many years, gowns were constructed from cotton and then rented for the big day. But over the past 25 years, the scholastic services industry transitioned from cotton to polyester, the popular petroleum-based fabric of the 1970s. Polyester is constructed out of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the same chemical compound used to make plastic water bottles. PET does not fully decompose, surrendering any hope that products made from it will biodegrade safely – if at all. That means roughly eighty to one hundred MILLION gowns have been thrown into landfills – roughly the equivalent of 25,000 garbage trucks – that’s a 118 mile long caravan! The detrimental impact on our environment can no longer be ignored.
Find out more info about Greener Grads here.
Listen to the segment here.
