From The Daily Telegraph, 17 August 2009
By Richard Savill
A state school in Waterlooville, Hampshire, has been accused of potentially creating a “back-door selection” system by introducing a compulsory ‘eco-friendly’ uniform costing about £100 ($165 USD)
Oaklands Roman Catholic School in Waterlooville has introduced the uniform made from recycled bottles which can only be bought from the school or from the Schoolwear Shop in nearby Havant.
Other schools also have some degree of exclusivity, where logoed polo shirts or jumpers can only be bought from the school or one shop.
MPs have raised concerns that such expensive uniforms could deter poorer families from sending children to their chosen school…
Parents have pointed out that supermarkets like Tesco can supply entire uniforms for only £3.50 (about $5.75 USD).
Full Story here
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Aren’t natural fibers like cotton and wool, fundamentally, a more renewable resource that recycled plastic? What do they make the plastic bottles out of?
This obviously runs against any “natural” or “organic” mentality. Who knows, maybe these uniforms cause cancer or something like that.
You’re never too young to learn that ‘going green’ costs YOU a lot of money, and makes SOMEONE ELSE a fat profit….
Recycled bottle uniforms. Wonder if they have a contents expiration date stamped on them.
Look at those short pants and knee-length socks! I bet you the older kids will have to wear long pants which will cost even more.
Now if they would just issue hair shirts, the kids could start doing their eco-penance while doing their mathematics.
Let’s start a petition to rename the Prius to the Pious, that way everyone can be sure of how holy the hybrid owners really are.
I have it on good authority that they can defecate without making any smell.
This is a good thing! The uniforms will be unbearably uncomfortable. No better way do demonstrate the folly of the loony enviro cause than to let them do whatever they want! They will marginalize themselves quite effectively.
I hasten to add that the story should mention recycled plastic bottles and not the glass version…:)
I used some of this material to insulate my house last winter-I saw the cold weather coming thanks to WUWT. It was excellent.
Surely the recycled bottles are used in the ever more common and fashionable ‘fleece’? It is very comfortable and hard wearing but by its nature will be warm-surely not ideal bearing in mind the unprecedented global warming that is now upon us.
Presumably the price is so high as so few other schools are buying uniforms made from this material.
tonyb
Nothing surprising here. The whole “green” movement is fundamentally an attack on the poor.
Quoting Frederick:
“What do they make the plastic bottles out of?”
An astute question. Most plastics are made from petroleum.
Green is as green does, sir.
Nothing we haven’t seen before. Just change the color to light brown and add an armband.
Fred from Canuckistan . . . (11:07:53) : “…Let’s start a petition to rename the Prius to the Pious, that way everyone can be sure of how holy the hybrid owners really are.”
“Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.”
“He whom God wishes to destroy, goes nuts for a Prius.”
I think you will find that the photograph is taken in Turville, Oxfordshire. Caps and short trousers for schoolboys went out years ago in the UK. I would guess that the photo was taken some fifty or so years ago, or for a modren film maybe – Turville, in the Chiltern Hills, is very picturesque and, only 30-40 miles from the centre of London. It is frequently used for films and TV (eg. Vicar of Dibley).
As this is a climate-sceptical website you may be interested to know that a windmill has been installed on the hill overlooking the village. But this was done in 1816 and replaced one that had been there since the sixteenth century. The payback came from milling grain – it was installed before CO2 was invented! The windmill is now purely ornamental. Hayley Mills owned it at one time.
Regards
Monbiot over at the Guardian has declared war on Tesco coz it plans to build a store in his pristine Welsh village. Sorry no link but easy to find on his website. A case of NIMBY
Sorry for the families.
Seems ridiculously expensive for recycled polyester…
The idea of recycling is to save materials, energy and money. If these outfits cost much more than average, this suggests that no such savings are being realized.
Much is written about the benefits of recycling, but little about the costs. HIgh energy and labour costs may make recycling net negative in both cases, and may lead to the conclusion that some recycling is fundamentaly anti-environmental.
_____________________
Polyethylene terephthalate (sometimes written poly(ethylene terephthalate)), commonly abbreviated PET, PETE, or the obsolete PETP or PET-P), is a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and is used in synthetic fibers; beverage, food and other liquid containers; thermoforming applications; and engineering resins often in combination with glass fiber.
Depending on its processing and thermal history, polyethylene terephthalate may exist both as an amorphous (transparent) and as a semi-crystalline material. The semi crystalline material might appear transparent (spherulites < 500 nm) or opaque and white (spherulites up to a size of some µm) depending on its crystal structure and spherulite size. Its monomer (bis-ß-hydroxyterephthalate) can be synthesized by the esterification reaction between terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol with water as a byproduct, or by transesterification reaction between ethylene glycol and dimethyl terephthalate with methanol as a byproduct. Polymerization is through a polycondensation reaction of the monomers (done immediately after esterification/transesterification) with ethylene glycol as the byproduct (the ethylene glycol is directly recycled in production).
The majority of the world's PET production is for synthetic fibers (in excess of 60%) with bottle production accounting for around 30% of global demand. In discussing textile applications, PET is generally referred to as simply "polyester" while "PET" is used most often to refer to packaging applications.
Some of the trade names of PET products are Dacron, Diolen, Tergal, Terylene, and Trevira fibers,[1] Cleartuf, Eastman PET and Polyclear bottle resins, Hostaphan, Melinex, and Mylar films, and Arnite, Ertalyte, Impet, Rynite and Valox injection molding resins. The polyester industry makes up about 18% of world polymer production and is third after polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
Anthony,
I don’t know where that photo came from but it is probably decades old!
modern not modren!
When in doubt, check Google Image:
http://www.archivist.f2s.com/bsu/TradBoy.htm
“We made a decision and that’s the decision we decided to make.” And voila, another Yogi Beraism is born. It’s deja-vu all over again.
There is a real danger of childs being burned because dressing with this material is like dressing with fuel. Remember this when searching the culprits of those childs who will die.
I dearly love to read a real expert upon his subject. Thanx.
You are entirely right of course, recycling is no panacea and often costs more than it saves.
Here we have an incinerator finally built after much objection so our refuse, garbage the USA might say, is burned and the valuable waste, aluminium, steel etc. is recovered, the glass goes for hardcore. To my mind this makes good sense, used plastics are turned into usable heat.
Unfortunately although the plant has a small electric generating capacity which feeds into our grid much of the heat which could have been used for a District heating scheme to warm homes and offices goes to waste because the Greenies insisted the plant be sited well away from urban areas.
They said the fumes might poison us all. Nope. Constant monitoring of the air quality around it shows it produces no dangerous contaminants.
But that is typical eco/green luddism for you.
Kindest Regards
Fibers based on PET are very cheap.
The so called Fleece Jackets (produced in China) are sold in Europe for under 10 Euro.
I have a natural resentment against school uniforms and I think they should be banned, but that is a different story.
Leaves me to comment the costs of the school uniform: it’s simply ridiculous.
“A lot of green” – It’s nit-picking, I suppose, but it’s green only if payment is made in 100 pound notes.
http://www.moneymatterstome.co.uk/Images/Euro_notesCoins.jpg
Apparently, every denomination of Euro has its own color:
5’s are light blue.
10-pound notes are sort of reddish colored.
20’s are a darker blue, and
50’s are orange.
200’s are yellow.
500’s are pink.
I’ve heard the dollar referred to in various slang, most often derived from food references: lettuce, dough, bacon, bread. I’d bet most other countries “get” those references. Don’t know if “green” will resonate with everyone in the international readership you’ve garnerered here, Anthony. ; – )
Why not read the real story:
http://www.oaklands.hants.sch.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=0&Itemid=32
In UK many schools have logos on some items of the uniform These are usually only available from local retailers, and therefore more expensive. The only recycled item is the blazer. This has a logo. This is UK produced (no 3rd world sweat shop). This is therefore more expensive.
Frederick Michael (10:41:38) : Who knows, maybe these uniforms cause cancer or something like that.
Plastic in contact with that much of your body for long periods of time can’t be good.
Any one with sense would only want children to have only cotton or wool in their school uniform.
Being a citizen of Waterlooville I am puzzled why this is being reported on this American climate science blog. The uniform pictured is not a typical UK primary school uniform, your ideas in this regard are as outdated as your scientific views.
The fact is Tescos is putting a lot of local businesses out of business and has in the past used cheap labour to produce its clothing range.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/child%20labour%20making%20tesco%20clothes/170400
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/13/ethical-supermarket-clothes
The local paper also reported it:
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/Ecofriendly-100-school-uniform-39popular39.5575080.jp
The kids support the uniform, maybe they are less cynical and understand the issues better than Mr Watts. I hope Mr Watts research into US temperature measurements are more thorough than this poor attempt at media research.
REPLY: Sir/madam look at the masthead, shall I then remove all articles on technology, electric cars, and anything else I’ve mentioned in the past that is non climate, just because you believe this blog should be only about climate? I think not. I suggest you get your own blog and you can operate it as you see fit. If you don’t like this one, please by all means don’t visit. -A