NEW ORLEANS — Earth Day began in 1970, and now 51 years later, a billion people across the planet take action to do something for the environment.
That's exactly what some high school students in New Orleans are doing, and they're hoping to make a difference close to home.
A map from Sydney McGovern of the LSU Manship School News Service, shows the large portion of the Louisiana coast that could erode away over the next 50 years if nothing is done to restore it.
Places like Lafourche Parish feel the pinch of the shrinking wetlands.
“The end game is that we're going to move out of certain areas, and never have a chance to get them, and some places won't be important enough to continue keeping,” said Windell Curole , the General Manager of the South Lafourche Levee District, during a 2020 storm.
And 50 years from now, the National Honor Society Students who are now seniors at Academy of the Sacred Heart will likely be experiencing the joy of their new grandbabies or thinking about retiring.
So on this Earth Day, they are taking a small step towards their futures, and the future of the ever-shrinking map of Louisiana.
“Louisiana losses about a football field of land every hour to coastal erosion, and so what they're doing with the glass sand is really important to rebuilding that ecosystem,” Senior, Charlotte Galloway said about Glass Half Full recycling.
“I really care about the environment and the future of our environment, and so glass recycling is a really great way to help our ecosystem,” said Emily LeBlanc, another Sacred Heart Senior.
They asked families to bring the glass to school. The people who started Glass Half Full recycling as Tulane students just a year ago, helped them collect it. The glass then goes to their Gentilly warehouse and is turned to a powder, used to fill large sandbags, or made into new glass products and one day they hope it can be used to rebuild the coast.
“Glass recycling is something that fell by the wayside after (Hurricane) Katrina and we felt really impassioned to make a change,” said Franziska Trautmann, Founder of Glass Half Full.
“Being able to come to this place and see how much is at stake every day, it really gets us out of bed and excited to do kind of what we do,” said Max Steitz, Founder of Glass Half Full. He is originally from New York City.
But more than the coastline is at stake. Polluted waterways are killing sea life.
“I feel like after seeing something like that, no one should be able to just keep littering or keep wasting garbage instead of recycling it,” said Caroline Evans, a senior at Sacred Heart.
And overflowing landfills are an issue too.
“If we don't recycle, and if we don't find a way to like counter act that, it can be really harmful for like our land,” said senior Olivia McGoey.
You can drop off your glass recycling at the Glass Half Full warehouse in Gentilly three days a week. For more information: https://glasshalffullnola.org/.
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