Ban the Bottle holds environmental awareness assembly

Mia Lopez-ZubiriStaff WriterIn an effort to raise student and faculty awareness about the negative side effects of plastic bottle use, the Ban the Bottle club held an assembly demonstrating the dangers of plastic bottles on Friday, March 23. The assembly was hosted by several club members and engineer-in-training Shohreh Janfaza.Club president and junior Natasha Janfaza says that she started the club in the 2009-2010 school year in order to try to reduce the consumption of plastic bottle beverages at Samo.“We started the club because Natasha was really passionate about banning something that’s so detrimental to the environment,” club webmaster and junior Brandon Pearl said. “It’s real and we thought it was a cause worth going into.”The club is attempting to help people realize that there are many simple alternatives to plastic bottles such as reusable bottles that also have many benefits.“When you have a reusable water bottle, like glass bottles, you can fill it up before you come to school and then refill it at the Vike’s Inn,” Janfanza said.Although currently they are only eliminating plastic bottles at Samo, the club’s long-term goal is to ban them throughout the city of Santa Monica.“Last year, we went to homeroom classes and the members of our club gave a short presentation on why plastic bottle beverages are bad,” Natasha Janfaza said. “For the reasons of cost, effects on the environment and effects on our health. It’s very wasteful for companies to be producing these water bottles because it annually takes the equivalent of 17 million barrels of oil to produce the final product of bottled water and that doesn’t even include transportation.”Club advisor Ayanna Pantallion says that she decided to support the club because the idea behind it interested her.“I think [the club is] just raising awareness and trying to get people to think about not following the status quo, and think about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Pantallion said. “I think you need to have the conversation that this is our environment and these are the things we are doing to our environment and hopefully something that the students saw today at the assembly resonated with them.”During the assembly, Shohreh Janfaza showed the high acidity levels in beverages such as bottled water and soda, which are very harmful to the body. She used the Enagic Kangen water filter, which the club hopes Samo will purchase in order to promote student health and to help lower the acidity level of the different liquids.The filter attaches to sink faucets and filters the water that passes through.“We are hoping to educate everybody about why they should stay away from plastic bottle drinks for environmental and health reasons,” Shohreh Janfaza said. “Our goal is for students and parents to realize that this is a big deal, and that they can support it by joining the Ban the Bottle club, creating awareness and donating money to the club.”mlopezzubiri@thesamohi.com