Hudson – Students in Kate Tobiasson’s class seventh grade English Language Arts class at the Quinn Middle School recently competed a unit on persuasive writing. As such the students chose topics of interest to them and wrote a letter to the editor on that topic.
Here in the second part in this series – more letters will be printed in future issues of the Community Advocate.
Dear Hudson residents,
The use of plastic bags, plastic straws, and plastic water bottles is an issue. Plastic has provided a cheap and convenient alternative to organic containers. Americans have thrown out millions of plastic straws every day, and trillions of plastic bags are used around the world each year. Also, nearly millions of plastic bottles are sold every minute. But is it worth it? Our wildlife and the environment are all being affected by the use of plastic. Plastic bags take about 1,000 years for it to decompose, plastic water bottles take 450 years or more and plastic straws take about 500 years to decompose.
During the time when plastic is being decomposed countless whales, birds, seals, and turtles are killed every year from plastic bag litter. Some marine life can mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and end up eating it and have the plastic stay in their stomach because it can’t be digested. Any plastic, in general, a marine animal can mistake for food.
Plastic water bottles negatively affect our environment by leaking harmful chemicals into our environment during the time it decomposes. Studies have shown that the toxins that are released by the bottles leach into our environment and can cause a variety of health issues, such as reproductive problems and cancer. Plastic bags also leach into the soil and slowly release toxic chemicals.
Hudson should enforce alternatives and make it a law to take reusable shopping bags with you to the store, use reusable drinking bottles or metal bottles such as a hydro flask, and metal straws or paper straws or even just skip it altogether. At a restaurant, people can ask not to be given a plastic straw and some restaurants have also stopped handing them out unless people ask.
A citizen who wants change,
Larissa Granger
Dear concerned Hudson citizens,
Recent events in a Hudson Public School, have opened the eyes of many people on this ever dangling problem, teen nicotine consumption.
One of the biggest problems with nicotine is its exposure to the youth. When nicotine is consumed by its teen user, the consequences are dire, yet so many teens come back to take a hit from the vape, or a cigarette. Nicotine has remarkable effects on the body such as a rush of adrenaline, sudden release of glucose, and even raised blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration.
Hudson Public Schools continues to struggle to keep e-cigarettes and vape out of the school system. The consequences given to students are simply just not strict enough when caught vaping, or smoking. Students should not only receive a suspension and a small period of time spent with a counselor, but the student should also spend time with the school officer and get back on track classes. This will help the student because the student is forced to get back on the track to success – it is not a decision that the students makes themselves.
Please talk to your children who are in middle and high school to make sure they know that consuming this chemical is unsafe, unhealthy, and overall gross.
A worried child,
Luke Feddersohn
