We met with two tour guides from the Bill Gates Discovery Center. They gave information on a topic that doesn’t usually come to mind when you think of water pollution. We learned about how Western flush toilets(most toilets used in America) take gallons of drinking water to flush. Which is a limited resource as it is, meanwhile, it’s not like we’re drinking from our toilets! Not to mention that they are anything but affordable. Toilets aren’t accessible to everyone, and using the restroom might mean something entirely different to someone on the other side of the world.

At the Bill Gates Discovery Center, scientists are working hard to create more efficient and affordable toilets that solve as many problems in one model. Some of the prototypes don’t even require water to flush, also known as a “water-less flush.” More environmentally friendly toilets could be one of the keys to preventing water pollution, and at the forefront of encouraging water conservation.

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On Thursday, the 31th of March my group was honored to meet Jennifer Scales. Jennifer Scales is a professional at Discovery Center Gates Foundation. We were also with Rebecca Lawler who is Jennifer’s assistant.

Jennifer opens up the interview with a poop slide presentation and talked about poop, toilets and sanitation. What I learned from meeting her was that 3.5 billion people in the world are not connected to good waste management system. That’s almost half of the whole worlds entire population. Some people even have to public defecate which is just pooping in public. Improper sanitation is the cause of 700,000 childhood deaths each year. Knowing this makes me really sad that this is happening to people around the world but it also encourages me to do more to sustain pure water and sanitation.

She also talked to us about different types of toilets. There are western toilet, urinals, and squat toilets. Squat toilets are more common than western toilets. Which is really surprising to me because I only us western toilets. There are solutions to this toilet problem though that she talked about. One in particular she talked about was a toilet that turns poop into ashes and filter our pee to be like ocean water. All in all it was really great talking to Jennifer and she taught us so much that I have never thought about before.

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Jennifer led us on a virtual tour of the exhibit “What to do with all that Poo?” at the Gates Foundation Discovery Center. We learned about how proper sewage is extremely important to have clean water, and how having an improper waste disposal system can be harmful to the environment. This can cause up to 700,000 childhood deaths each year.
We also learned some fun facts related to the topic. One thing was that squat toilets are more common than western toilets, which surprised me. We also learned that Sir Thomas Crapper invented the toilet in the 1880s.

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Jennifer Bombardier obtained her M.A. in Environmental Conservation Education from New York University. She has taught educational programs at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She is currently the Education Manager for the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

This interview was very informative. We learned many pieces of valuable information. One thing interesting I learned was that areas that are flooded and more prone to hurricanes are at risk.

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We had an interview with Linda Escalante. Escalante is a renowned environmental expert in the United States. She promotes strong relationships with state and local elected officials, partner organizations, coalitions, and other stakeholders.

We learned lots of new interesting information during this interview. For one thing, the less water that’s available, the more concentrated the chemicals in the water. We need to find substitutes for certain products that produce an excessive amount of pollution.

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My teammates and I interviewed Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar. She is Program Director for the Sustainable Infrastructure Unit with the New York City Department of Design and Construction. She manages design contracts and ensures the on-time delivery of NYC’s Department of Environmental Protection’s various multi-million-dollar city-wide green infrastructure contracts.

Something interesting that we learned is that when there is a lot of rain, more pollution builds up. Water pollution is not all caused by man-made objects, but also natural occurrences. Also, the more resources you use to combat pollution, the more you’re contributing to climate change, so we need to put more work into both to solve this circle of issues

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Linda Escalante communicates the needs of the environment to public officials to pass bills such as the Clean Water Act, and other movements to better care for our surroundings. She works for the NRDC. Linda is important to our topic because being able to inform others on critical issues is extremely important in order to work together and get things done.

During the interview, Linda explains how impact water preservation in how most wars are over resources that provide economical power, not just water but other crops and items, as well as as how literally everything we do or create comes with a cost to the environment. Even though dying from unclean water seems like a distant past, many are still falling to contaminated water. This is because of many companies and cooperation dumping toxic waste into water ways, spreading throughout all water via trans-boundary contamination.

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On Thursday, the 3rd of February our group was honored to meet with Jennifer Bombardier. Jennifer Bombardier is an export at LES Ecology Center. She is focused around educating others on the environment around us, “work toward a better future.” We asked many questions like different types of water pollution, how climate change affecting the water cycle, and what are some solutions to water pollution which then helps climate change. She was very nice and informed us with her wisdom about how rain water and waste water in the same sewage system is being dumbed back into the ocean untreated.

Jennifer became passionate about environmental education during her college years at George Mason University in Northern Virginia. She is dedicated to connecting youth with their local environment and instilling stewardship values that last a lifetime. She told use different organization that we can trust, including Billion Oyster Project, Water Act, etc. This issue is really important to her and us and we were so happy to interview her on zoom.

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On Tuesday, the 1th of February our group was honored to meet with Linda Escalante. Linda Escalante is an export at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). We asked many questions like different types of water pollution, how climate change affecting the water cycle, and what are some solutions to water pollution which then helps climate change. She was very nice and informed us with her wisdom about how water pollution affects industries and the people. She talks about how people who work in industries are also affected by the changing of policies to help benefit water pollution and climate change. If they take away these industries, thousands of people are not going to have jobs.

Linda Escalante goes to elected officials to persuade them into making good decisions for the environment and public health. Escalante is a renowned environmental expert in the U.S-based Spanish language—empowering and mobilizing Latinos to engage in advocacy and activism around environmental and health issues. Escalante, who is also passionate about civil, immigrant, and women’s rights, has served as a board member of a worker wellness and healthcare access organization. This issue is really important to her and us and we were so happy to interview her on zoom.

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Jennifer Bombardier is a part of the Lower East Side Ecology Center, contributing to green infrastructure, and changes for water preservation and cleaning. She claims that water is essential for everything, recreation, drinking, cooking, and many other daily activities. Toxic waste is commonly, illegally, dumped into our waterways, harming both humans and animals. Heating and cooling systems in buildings are major contributors to global warming because of how much fossil fuels they produce.
Rain and waste water are being stored in the same areas, polluting the rain water that could have been cleaned and turned into drinking water. People should try and conserve water as much as possible, especially when it rains.

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We met with Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar, architect for the city and green infrastructure. Sofía Zuberbühler-Yafar is Program Director for the Sustainable Infrastructure Unit with the New York City Department of Design and Construction. She is important to our topic because she provided a lot of information regarding sewage problems in NYC and how green infrastructure and sustainability is the future of our society, and how it can save our water, and work toward the slow of Climate Change.
She has over 19 years of experience in Urban Design and was able to inform us of the city’s measures to combat water pollution through water basins, and other ways to save energy during rainstorms and through more Eco-friendly farming.

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On Monday, the 31th of January our group was honored to meet with Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar. Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar is an export at NYC Dept of Design and Construction, leading their Green Infrastructure and Sustainable/Resilient Infra Program. We asked many questions like different types of water pollution, how climate change affecting the water cycle, and what are some solutions to water pollution which then helps climate change. She was very nice and informed us with her wisdom about sewage water and storms and was very cooperative.

Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar is a mother of a student in our school. She is a graduate degree in Urban Design and over 19 years of experience architecture. including urban planning with the NYC Department of City Planning and landscape architecture design in the private realm. This issue is really important to her and us and we were so happy to interview her on zoom.

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We had an interview with Jennifer Bombardier. Jennifer is the educational manager at the Lower East Side Ecology Center. She told us a lot about the organization and what they do. We learned about the major effects and sources of water pollution and she gave us a list of organizations that we could either schedule and interview with or find an oppurtunity to do fieldwork. I think that this was a very successful interview and now we have other people that we could meet with to learn even more about our topic.

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We had an interview with Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar from Green Infrastructure and Sustainable/Resilient Infra Program. We talked with Sofia about the dangers of water pollution and the effects that it has. We learned a lot about storm water and what is being done to ensure that we have clean water that we can drink. This was a very successful interview and I feel like our group learned a lot of helpful information.

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We had an interview with Linda Escalante from the NRDC and although the interview got cut short, we learned a lot of about where water comes from, how it is used, and what pollutes it the most. Linda told us about what she does at the NRDC and how the NRDC takes action in helping decontaminate the water around us.

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On Thursday, the 27th of January, I presented an overview of my social justice project. We presented the issue of water pollution and how it leads to climate change. My group did a great job collaborating. We called, texted, and all worked on the project. This information is important to me because I grew up where there was a high population of poverty and a lack of access to resources. Having a lack of one of the most important resources in the world and also it being dirty and filled with toxic waste is very jeopardizing. Even if I specifically wasn’t “poor,” I still feel sympathy for my people.

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Last week, on Friday the 21st of January, my group presented the basics and gave an introduction to our topic. I was not there, but I helped make the presentation and if I was there, I would have talked about the organizations we are planning on meeting with and the specific people from those organizations. One of the organizations we are hoping to meet with is the NRDC (National Resources Defense Council).

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Last week in school my group presented their social justice project 101. This was our first attempt at sharing initial research with our peers. I wasn’t very nervous at all because I did my reading and had worked on the slides. Personally, this was my major reaction to the articles I read, “In the US, more than 7 people die from violence per hour. That’s about 61,000 violence-related deaths yearly. The fact that more people globally die yearly from using bad water is shocking and horrible.”

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Last week in school my group presented their social justice project presentation 101. This was our first attempt at sharing initially research with our peers. I wasn’t very nervous because I did my reading and had worked on the slides. Personally this was my major reaction to what we read, “It is important because at this rate, we’ll all die of drought or climate change, both having to deal with human footprint, waste, and terrible decision making. – TG”. My group has not yet received any emails back but we are going to be reaching out to different organizations and individuals in the near future.

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