We, the 5th grade students from the International School of Macaé and ATIVO, petition our administrators and staff to stop buying plastic drinking cups so that we can reduce the amount of plastic we’re using at the school and the amount of money we’re spending. We would like to see trash cans that aren’t full of plastic cups, more recycling bins at our school, and everyone using only 1 plastic cup per day or bringing in their own water bottle from home until we can get new ISoM-decorated water bottles instead. Did you know that we use 5,000 plastic cups per week, costing the school R$159? That means that we use: -20,000 cups per month—spending R$636 -240,000 cups per year—spending R$7,632 -1,200,000 cups every 5 years—spending R$38,160 We could use this money to buy better products for our school! Also, instead of polluting our world with plastic, we could HELP our world and our oceans! What does plastic do to our world? • There is so much plastic in the ocean, and lots of poor, innocent animals die because of those who do not recycle. • On Midway Island in the North Pacific Ocean, many baby birds and animals die because they eat the garbage we throw into the ocean. If we keep on doing this more and more, animals will die. Some species could become extinct. • Can you believe that an albatross gave plastic to its chicks thinking it was food and they all died? • We are like animals, the only difference is that they don’t pollute our world, we pollute theirs. • We can save them! Don’t waste plastic cups, think before you throw something away, and don’t throw trash on the sand at the beach. • The most important of the 3Rs is “reduce”. Reducing the amount of plastic we use means these sad events have a lower chance of happening. • Please recycle all the plastic you can because plastic doesn’t decompose. This plastic will come to us because we eat the fish that eat the plastic. Please help us help the world. It all depends on YOU. So… are you going to help us? Sign if you want to make our school a better place. And tell your friends!