Earth Day events continue

JANN HENDRY/Acorn Newspapers F. A .C.E.CLOTH- Wi l l o w Elementary School's Kids FACE Club celebrates Earth Day Week by selling reusable cloth grocery bags. Parent Gretchen Berg, right, purchases a bag from Lauren Smith on Tuesday.

In celebration of Earth Day Week, the Kids FACE (For a Clean Environment) Club at Willow Elementary School is raising awareness that reusable cloth bags are good for the environment.

The club will sell reusable cloth grocery bags for $5 from 8 to 8:20 a.m. and 2:15 to 3 p.m. today and tomorrow, Thurs. and Fri., April 26 and 27 at the school. The bags were designed by three Willow students and only 300 were printed for this sale.

This is not a PFA fundraiser. Kids FACE will donate all money from the bag sale to an environmental organization of the club members' choosing.

Last year, Kids FACE was recognized by the Agoura Hills City Council and California Assembly for their cloth grocery bag sale.

The club at Willow Elementary is one of the largest environmental school clubs in the nation with more than 40 fourthand fifth-grade members.

The club presents these facts about the environment:

+Marine life, such as birds and sea turtles, often die from choking on plastic bags mistaken for food in the ocean.

+Paper bags required 14 million trees to be cut annually because new wood pulp is required for strength and recycled paper can only make up a small percentage of the new bags.

Manufacturing plastic bags requires using nonrenewable resources which i n c r e a s e s greenhouse gases, leading to pollution and global w a r m i n g . Only 1 to 3 percent of plastic bags are recycled.

+San Francisco recently became the first city in the United States to ban plastic bags.

+Other countries are now charging a bag tax up to 25 cents per plastic bag.

+Each American uses 700 to 900 plastic grocery bags a year.