The upper school’s Green Team was today awarded a Distinguished Honorable Mention in the Bow Seat Marine Debris Creative Advocacy Competition. The annual competition, which ended this year after starting in 2016, judged advocacy campaigns created by students aged 11-18 that brought awareness and encouraged action on marine debris in their schools and communities.

Seniors Anvi Banga, Alex Shing, Anthony Shing, and juniors Sachi Bajaj and Natasha Yen created the Buy Better Boba campaign to reduce the proliferation of single-use plastics on campus, particularly those used by bubble tea drinks that have become popular in student fundraisers. The campaign provided reusable glass jars as well as materials that could be used to promote this effort at other schools. The team also engaged with local bubble tea businesses and encouraged them to incentivize the use of reusable containers by their customers.

According to the Bow Seat website, the judges were impressed that, “The Green Team identified a problem that was unique to their school, created a simple and inexpensive solution, and developed strategies to make it scalable in their broader community.”