Back when my book takes place in 1971, gay marriage did not exist. Around that time the definition of marriage was marriage only between a man and a women. Anything else was looked down upon at this time. Same gender partners could not enjoy the same benefits of a married man and a women did have. Recently this has changed and marriage between a women and a women or a man and a man are now legal. We have come a far way and should continue to fight for our rights!
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My book, Rubyfruit Jungle, takes place around 1971. This was a time when segregation was a big problem in the South but also the LGBT+ community was being mistreated. Molly, the main character of this book is fighting for rights in pride parades around the east coast. These parades were big events in our history and they are still big today. "The second annual Gay Pride Parade took place in June 1971 in New York City as thousands of people once again hit the streets to march for LGBT rights." (Ruppman, 2012). In that time some people felt like it was important to fight for LGBT+ rights while others felt like it was important that they got no rights at all. In Molly's point of view she feels it's important for everyone to have equal rights so she supports the community that is with this opinion. On the other hand Carrie, Molly's mom, thinks that people in this community are going against God's rules when they love someone of the same gender so she does not agree with Molly's opinion and suggests there's no need to give them equal rights. She says, "You're not my child. You're wild, some wild animal," after Molly informing her mother that she is bisexual. Molly then proceeds to move all the way from Florida to New York after Carrie tells her that she does not accept her sexuality.
North Carolinians recycle 85.4 pounds of materials a second (RE3 2017). This recycling saves 75 percent more energy than making the material with raw materials but we throw away more than 752 pounds of trash a second. That's almost nine times more than we recycle (RE3 2017). This affects the environment because of how much trash we throw away instead of recycling it which will then affect us because of all the pollution. We are interested in this topic because when we walk around wake county we see trash all over the place. When you are driving you see trash scattered around the highway or when you are walking in downtown Raleigh you see trash on the sidewalk and on the road. Instead of recycling that piece of paper it's now polluting the earth. We should all care about this issue because we are polluting the environment and we could all help with recycling a bit more and if we all don't do that we could help save thousands of trees and water. According to re3 , “only half of aluminum cans are recycled despite a statewide disposal ban on the material. Aluminum and glass companies rely heavily on secondary materials for their product, and many plastics manufacturers also depend on recovered material.” (RE3 2017). This means that if we recycle more aluminum we could be saving thousands of raw materials. Also recycling lets other people have jobs. “Recycling in North Carolina is a job creator and a growing part of our state’s economy. Recycling employs more than 15,000 North Carolinians and recycling jobs have increased about 48 percent in the last ten years.” (RE3 2017). So we are also helping our community with giving other people jobs. Recycling helps out with a lot of things. Picture above found here. Recycling saves energy and by using recycled material we save on energy consumption. As more and more people stop recycling or don’t do it at all negative things could happen to the community. By throwing everything away and not reducing, reusing, or recycling them it can cause the landfill to build up and start to smell horrible. All of these things could end up being toxic from all the harmful chemicals coming from styrofoam and also destroying habitats. Without recycling it could pollute the air. This means bad things are put into the air which can affect the air that we breath. Burning trash is a massive source of air pollution. About 2.9 million people die each year from air pollution, but recycling is one way we can stop air pollution. If this problem is not taken care of the soil could be affected by the harmful chemicals and destroy habitats or even pollute the air that we breath. This could affect our natural environment such as habitat destruction, harmful chemical, and global warming. All of those things are caused by deforestation from un recycled material. Picture above found here. Recycling is a big problem in our community but people are trying to help recycle more often. One program, Feed The Bin (Dunstan, 2015), is a school recycling program in Wake County. It's purpose is to have more materials recycled in schools and provide students with education regarding waste and recycling. Since 2004, over 175 schools have and still are participating in the program. More than 10 million pounds of paper have been recycled through this program since it began. It also won an award for “Best School Recycling Program in the U.S.” This is because the students are excited about recycling. Some schools hold contests to see who recycles the most so the competition gets big. In other schools the students get to make advertisements like newspapers about recycling. The stuff that they get to do motivates them to want to recycle. Wake county (Walston, 2015) is also playing a part in recycling. Everyday they go around and collect recycling from different locations throughout the county. Without them we would have to drop off our recycling which would be very inconvenient. If we didn't have the county to help out, we would recycle a lot less so they are helping us out a lot more than we think. Even though there are programs and people trying to help recycle more, there is still a need for help in our community. According to re3 (2017), with everyone trying to help, we still throw away nine times more trash than we do recycle. Also things that should be able to be recycled such as construction paper, pizza boxes, and paper towels can still not be recycled. These things should be recycled but it's against the rules of Wake county (Wake County 2016). We need for these materials to be recycled because otherwise they are just going to the trash when they have the potential to be recycled. Picture above found here. To help with this issue we could set up more recycling bins and collectors around the school. These bins would be able to take everything instead of the Feed The Bin program that doesn't take bottles, construction paper, cardboard, and other commonly recyclable items. These bins will be placed in the classrooms so teachers can supervise what is being placed in the bins. These bins will be set out for the last couple weeks of school and over those weeks we will collect the bags of recycling. At the end of the year we will take them to 2405 Wade Avenue - 27607(City Of Raleigh, 2017). Our goal is to end with 125 full bags of recyclables. To see the whole plan see our Action Plan. Picture above found here.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Walston, Stephon, “Waste and Recycling.” Drop Off Options For Residents. August 6, 2015. Math 27, 2017 <http://www.wakegov.com/recycling/recycle/Pages/residentrecycling.aspx> Cashwell, Heather, “The Facts.” RE3. March 28, 2017 <http://www.re3.org/facts.htm> Dunstan, Rebecca, “Feed The Bin School Recycling Program.” February 9, 2015. March 28, 2017 <http://www.wakegov.com/recycling/recycle/ftb/Documents/FTBInfo_handout.pdf> Solid Waste Management Division, “Waste And Recycling Information Guide.” Wakegov.com. March 28, 2017 <http://www.wakegov.com/recycling/Documents/SWMD_Guide_web.pdf> City Of Raleigh, 2017 <https://www.raleighnc.gov/services/content/SolidWaste/Articles/DOCenters.html Vicky, Cayla, Hannah, and Drew Right now over 4.000 people in Wake county do mot have a shelter that they can go home to. This interests me because a lot more people then we think are homeless and there are ways that we can help them out. Also you don't know what has happened to them and it may not be their fault. They may have mental illnesses, not able to find a job, or abused. This impacts them because they are not safe without anywhere to live and it would be scary to not know where you are going to stay day after day. Our community should care about homelessness because it helps families stay together to raise stronger children. Later on they could come back into the community with many positive impacts, Another reason why we should care is it helps keep people healthier by getting them out of extreme weather conditions, prevents hunger, and it increases their sanitation. A few ways that we can help homeless people have a better life is by donating food and clothing, volunteer, and help employ the homeless. Homeless people need help, they deserve a chance.
https://www.raleighrescue.org/homelessness/ Hunger is a problem all over the world. North Carolina has ranked in the top ten food shortages in the United Sates. One out of every four children in NC are not sure where there next meal is coming from. The issue us that many people van not afford to purchase food and feed there families. There our many people in our community that face this problem everyday especially during the summer. Students at school rely on free or reduced meals during the school year. In the summer time these students have no access to food. It is important for us because no one deserves to go hungry and everyone deserves a chance. I have volunteered at the YMCA stop hunger now program. There are many opportunities to volunteer to help with this issue. You can donate money to organizations, donate food, and volunteer your time. Some organizations are foodshuttle.org www.foodbankcenc.org/site/PageServer?pagename=FBCENCHome http://www.foodbankcenc.org/site/PageNavigator/branch_raleigh.html This interests me because there is so much stuff that we can do to help but we aren't. No one deserves to go hungry.
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