Bobby's Introduces Organic Dairy Products

This week Bobby's, the Middle and High School cafeteria began offering organic dairy products for the first time. This first for ISB is the result of a lot of hard work and planning to ensure quality, safe products.

As you probably know (but we'll summarize anyway), organic dairy products come from cow that have not received hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified food. All of the former are used to maximize milk production but have side-effects on animal health. Traces are also frequently found in the dairy products humans consume and thereby impact the health and well-being of consumers. Organic ensures you get milk, not milk with hormones and prescription antibiotics.

This step not only helps ISB students and faculty, but it also gives a boost to the production of organic dairy foods in Thailand. This is currently a small market and an outlet like ISB encourages other farmers to switch to sustainable methods of production.

Thanks to Bobby and all the people who worked to make this happen.

TOP 12 REASONS TO GO ORGANIC

1. It's healthy. Organic food tends to contain higher levels of vitamin C, cancer-fighting antioxidants, and essential minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron and chromium. It is safe, nutritious, unadulterated food.
2. Organic food doesn't contain food additives that can cause health problems such as heart disease, osteoporosis,migraines and hyperactivity.
3. 3. It avoids pesticides. More than 400 chemical pesticides are routinely used in conventional farming and residues are often present in non-organic food.
4. It is environmentally friendly and doesn’t pollute our fresh water with runoff from pesticides.
5. It is produced without GMOs or drugs to the animals
6. It is against animal cruelty. Animals live on fields not in cages.
7. It is produced without antibiotics and growth-promoting drugs
8. It reduces dependence on non-renewable resources
9. There has not been a case of BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in any herd that has been in full organic management since before 1985.
10.It relies on a modern and scientific understanding of ecology and soil science, while also depending on traditional methods of crop rotations to ensure fertility and weed and pest control
11.It's good for wildlife and the environment. Organic farming is better for wildlife, causes lower pollution from sprays, produces less carbon dioxide - the main global warming gas -and less dangerous wastes.
12.It's flavorful. Many people prefer organic food because they say it tastes better.

Munch and Music

The ISB Student Council has taken one more step in the green direction by voting not to use disposable plates, cups or cutlery for their annual Munch and Music event. The event, a two hour showcase for student music and dance, is a huge fundraising opportunity for the many student organizations at ISB. Students recognized that last year's event generated a lot of waste from disposable plates and cups and decided to take action this year.

The Green Panthers' decision to purchase a huge set of utensils and plates for school events is paying off. The plates have been used at school events already and are reserved for Munch and Music and the International Food Fair. The reduced waste benefits us all (as does the reduced aggravation from trying to eat with plastic knives and forks).

Thanks to Student Council for making this commitment.

Accomplishments of 2007

We are a group of environmentally conscious people made up of teachers, parents, and board members. Our aim to increase environmental awareness at ISB and more importantly, start making positive environmental changes to reduce the school’s Eco (carbon) footprint.

Green Panther goals are to improve ISB’s environmental performance by:

• Activating environmental awareness, learning, and action
• Analyzing consumption patterns and habits at ISB
• Modeling responsible citizenship
• Providing venues for meaningful social action
• Reducing our impact on the environment

Some of the things the Green Panthers and ISB have done in 2006-2007 are:

• School wide eco survey
• Improved recycling center that collects batteries, tabs from cans, juice boxes, printer cartridges, and cell phone batteries
• Have added very useful recycling containers throughout the school for bottles, cans, and paper
• Blue box for each class for paper recycling
• Reduced the plastic bag use in the cafeteria
• Had a student logo contest
• Stopped the use of paper cups for sports teams and helped encourage teams to use reusable water bottles
• Reduced the amount of water bottles delivered because of a switch to water dispensers
• Weekly eco tips in student bulletin
• Weekend trip with 25 students to Khai Yai to work with Wildaid and learn about conservation
• Had meetings with architect to ensure new building and campus design has the environment in mind
• Bought 1000’s of dishes to use at events instead of disposable materials.Hosted environmental assemblies
• Designed Green Panther t-shirts and stickers based on the student logos
• Implemented a NO idling policy in the parking lot
• We have shown the movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ to all of the middle school and the high school
• This was built into curriculum and had amazing teacher support.We hosted Earth Week from April 23-27, culminating in a massive Earth Fair with several companies, NGO’s, organizations and students showing what they do for the environment