Teen L.E.A.D.E.R.S.

Lead by Educating with Activities and Demonstrations on the Environment, Resources and Sciences

Greetings readers!

My name is Jared Price. I am an educator at Fresno Chaffee Zoo and just finished my junior year at Los Banos High School. The past two weeks I took a little time off my job for a vacation in Italy (my first trip to Europe!) but I still managed to take a little bit of the zoo with me.

Everywhere I traveled I brought along my red Fresno Chaffee Zoo water bottle to help:

• Reduce my own consumption of single-use plastic water bottles

• Show all of the teens I was traveling with just how easy it is to go REUSABLE

And I made sure to photograph the entire journey!

Choosing a reusable water bottle over single-use plastic is SO IMPORTANT to our environment because:

• Using the same reusable bottle multiple times, you can save hundreds of plastic water bottles from ending up in landfill or as litter that eventually drifts down rivers and into the sea

Reusable water bottle making history at the Roman Coliseum!

• Plastics often find their way into our local ecosystems where they can endanger native wildlife

• Choosing to use a reusable water bottle also can save you a lot of money - Just think about much money you spend buying bottled water. After all, isn’t it just water?

• You’re saving WATER by going reusable- did you know it takes an average of 1.5 gallons of water just to MAKE a normal sized single-use bottle? That doesn’t even count the water needed to fill it!

• Reduce your carbon footprint and energy use- even producing and recycling plastic bottles uses a lot of energy!

Making a pit stop at the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Throughout my trip, I took my FCZ water bottle everywhere. From the ancient ruins of the Roman Coliseum, to the canals of Venice, and even to seaside cliffs of Sorrento, my bottle was by my side. In fact, it was pretty nice always having it with me. I saved a lot of money by not buying water. In Italy an average size bottle of water would commonly sell for 3 euro!  That means over the course of my 10 day trip I saved at least $38 US dollars! It was also a lot of fun. Commonly when photographing my bottle I’d get some funny looks, but that was a great part of sharing my message when I got to explain the reasons behind my funny antics to those I was with.

So how can YOU help? One easy thing to do is commit to carrying your favorite reusable water bottle. It’s really not that hard, I took mine all over Italy!  

Jared Price

Educator, Fresno Chaffee Zoo