O.P.T 4 Green Youth Conservation board
changes for a better tomorrow--today.
Events & Activities
Bicycle Contest Coming
OPT 4 Green Lego League
Placed 2nd overall in the
Oklahoma Lego Legue Competition
overall on December 12, 2009!
1st Alternate to National Competition
OPT 4 Green
The new sponsor of the Latta 4-H Club
Lego U.S. First
Robotics Team
4-H Round-UP Challenge
Any 4-H Round Delegate in 2009 can submit a green by e-mail
to opt4green@rocketmail.com a green project and awards will be given to three projects up to $50.00 each. Submit your project ideas today
July 18, 2009
Congratulations to Silver Medal Winner Emily Whitson
on her Recycling Contest
Back To School Basics
Receives $100.00 from Opt4Green.
Apply for Project Ideas Today!
opt4green@rocketmail.com
Recycle and Redesign Clothing Contest Coming Soon
Order Your "Dare to Be Green" Recycled Clothing or Make Your Own!
By Emily--Ada, OK
OPT 4 Green Member
Oklahoma OPT 4 Green Visits the Legislature
Congratulations Winners!
1st Place
Aaron Heathman - Moberly, MO
2nd Place
Courtney Lofton - Ada, OK
3rd Place
Taylor Smith--Pontotoc County 4-H
We Are Young People Making a Difference All Over Our World!
Presenting a New Contest
Upcoming Events
Ada High Members Initiate Contest at Local School: Ali Terral, Wamika Kumar, and Maci Huffman are conducting a contest among Ada High's 3rd Hour classes to see who can collect the most pop tabs. Email opt4green@rocketmail.com if you have some pop tabs you would like to give to your favorite class.
1st Utah meeting: We are about ready to hold the first meeting in Utah. The date will be announced soon. The Conservation Board will be meeting every other Friday.
Completed Events
News Paper Article:
Local store receives ‘Green’ bags November 11, 2008
Randy Mitchell Staff Writer
Ada — The Pontotoc County organization OPT 4 Green Youth Conservation Board is helping a local grocery store go green, so to speak.
The organization provided “green bags” to Apple Market recently. Green bags are somewhat inexpensive reusable shopping bags used to lessen the distribution of paper and plastic bags.
“Through a donation from the Coca-Cola Foundation and the OPT 4 Green Youth Conservation Board, we were able to come up with some money to put the bags in a local grocery store (Apple Market),” said Stacy Oakley, advisor for OPT 4 Green. “The bags were being put into the national chains, but at that time, Mr. Dicus didn’t have any coming in. Now he has since gotten some from Best Choice, but when we started the project he didn’t have any.”
Oakley said the organization is dedicated to helping the world realize what “OPTing” for a greener future can do.
Their goal is to get students from different parts of the world to dedicate themselves to preserving the planet by reducing the carbon footprint of their communities, and raising awareness of environmental hazards.
The carbon footprint is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that can be attributed to an organization, product, or individual.
The youth board will improve the carbon footprint of their communities through education, outreach programs, public demonstrations, and by improving their own green practices.
“We provided the bags for (Apple Market) to have as an alternative resource to paper and plastic,” Oakley said. “To encourage people to use them instead of paper or plastic which create a larger carbon footprint.”
Oakley’s daughter, Lashun Oakley, is the founder and chairperson of OPT 4 Green.
“Any youth in Pontotoc County can be a member of OPT 4 Green,” Stacy Oakley said. “ It’s a nationwide push. It began here in Pontotoc County through a DECA project we were doing with Holcim cement plant, Holcim (U.S.) Inc. It has stretched all over our nation and has a club in Salt Lake City, Utah as well.
“We started last year and we had a DECA project to promote the Holcim (U.S.) carbon footprint,” she continued. “They were having their 100th birthday and so they started to improve their environmental issues. So we began to promote that and we had a conservation day there at Holcim. We tested people’s carbon footprint and planted some trees.
“Holcim was so impressed with the kids, they decided to sponsor them and Sharon Meyers at Holcim (U.S.) is one of our advisors and I’m the other one. Through 4-H club projects and others, we’ve done several projects and one of them was recycling. We sent a recycled computer to an orphanage in Guatemala.”
To learn more, visit their Web site at opt4green.org.
Meeting:
Thank you everyone who attended the meeting on November 6, 2008. We will be having another one in the near future.
All of your input in the discussions was wonderful, and we were able to get some ideas for the future of the conservation board. Some of the stuff that you all brought up caused me to rethink how to implement it in Utah.
It looks like the Oklahoma chapter is going strong and we will be able to get a lot of projects done in the near future! Keep the ideas coming and keep thinking about all of the little things that you can do to further our cause. Also, I want to thank Sharon for taking the time to attend the meeting and all of the work she does to keep our organization strong!
-Austin Evans
P.S. All who attended please email me at opt4green@rocketmail.com and I will get a mailing list set up so we can all keep in contact.
Recycled Bags:
Recently O.P.T 4 Green Youth Conservation Board members had the opportunity to work with Coca Cola and Apple Market to get recyclable bags distributed to our community. Plastic bags are one of the biggest environmental offenders that there are. It takes a plastic bag between 20 and 1,000 years to break down in the environment, and much, much longer if it is in a landfill.
Apple Market is a grocery store in Ada Oklahoma. It is the only locally owned grocery store in Ada, and we are proud that they were able to take the lead on this issue in our community and be one of the first stores to offer an option besides "paper or plastic".
Ada Coca Cola Bottling representative Agnes Lane presents a check to Latta DECA in partnership with the Opt4Green Youth Conservation Board. Alex Lane is the chairman of the project which will provide recycled grocery bags to Apple Market. The project encourages shoppers to use the bags rather than paper or plastic. Representing Opt4green is Lashun Oakley while Brooke Powell, Daniel Wilburn, and Alex Lane represent Latta DECA.
Members of the Conservation Board hold the new bags with Mr. Dicus. If you want to get one head up to the Apple Market.
Award from the Environmental Federation of Oklahoma:
Recently Holcim (US) Ada Plant received an award from the Environmental Federation of Oklahoma for helping us start the board. Without their help we would not be able to do any of what we do—thank you Holcim, we know you deserve this award!
The letter we received:
Good Morning!
Just a note to let you know that the Ada plant received recognition from
the Environmental Federation of Oklahoma for the project submitted on our
efforts to raise awareness of carbon footprint and the development of the
Youth Conservation Board. The award was presented by the new Oklahoma
Secretary of Environment, J.D. Strong, and EFO president, Jim Haught.
During the luncheon, Lt.Gov. Jari Askins talked about environmental issues
and the future of getting our kids involved. JD had read through our
submittal and was very excited about the youth groups involvement.
All in all, it was very positive feedback for the Ada plant from various
industry reps as well as vendors and DEQ staff in attendance.
Sharon Meyers
Jim Haught, EFO president
Oklahoma Secretary of Environment, J.D. Strong
Holcim Devils Slide plant Conservation day:
On Saturday, September 14th the OPT 4 Green Youth Conservation Board had the opportunity to help Holcim (US) Devils Slide plant with their "Conservation Day". It was a great opportunity to get out in the community and help people realize the contributions they make to Global Pollution. I was at one of their computer booths helping people to measure their carbon footprint using the Nature Conservancy's carbon emissions calculator.
After people stopped by my booth and saw where their negative contributions were coming from they got to go around the different sections and learn about what they could do to make their homes--and lives cleaner, and safer.
Pontotoc County Fair:
We've been at the Pontotoc county fair in Ada passing out fliers and informing people about what the Board is doing in their area. We have been marketing green polices and habits to children and adults alike, and so far we have reached over 5,000 people. Thank you to everyone who dropped by our booth!
4-H Roundup:
Recycling Computers:
The first project for the
Through our research we found that ‘e-waste’ is less than 15% of all waste, but it results in over 79% of toxic waste. After finding out about these staggering numbers we decided that we had to do something about it, so we began to piece together a campaign for recycling old electronics.
The first step was to find out what we could do to prevent this waste from accumulating. Our first conclusion was that it could easily be recycled, and indeed, a new bill passed by the Oklahoma Senate states that all computer manufacturers/distributors in Oklahoma must provide a means to dispose of old, broken, and outdated computer equipment, as well as providing a means of recycling the equipment they must also make it free to use by the public.
We found a great place to find out where to recycle your computers, click here to find out where to recycle in your area.
We were also able to find several places in our neighborhood, and even out of our country that could use the computers. We gave some to a local church, the Ada boys and girls club, and we even sent some overseas.
Follow up:
After doing our e-waste project the city of Ada, Oklahoma is offering to collect 'e-waste' at the I.C.O.N center (300 East Arlington) from September 29th to October 3rd. In addition there will be an opportunity to drop it off on October 4th at ECU's Norris field on 14th and Stadium from 9 AM to 2 PM.
Recycling Computers 2:
Earlier this month a local high school decided to get rid of all its computers. Members of the Conservation Board and other volunteers from the Latta Baseball and Softball teams were there to help get the old computers loaded into a truck that was to take them to be recycled. At first we were carefully loading the computers, but then the driver said just to throw them into the truck, so we did :).
