A Burnaby student is considering not wearing a cap and gown for her graduation ceremony this weekend to protest her school’s use of the single-use items.
When École Alpha Secondary School student Ella Tani discovered in February that part of her school’s mandatory $80 graduation fee was going toward the purchase of a cap and gown, she was upset.
A member of Alpha’s Enviro Club, she was worried about the environmental impact of the single-use garments.
“It’s pretty common sense that disposing gowns every year is much more wasteful than re-using them,” Ella told the NOW.
Her father, Claude Tani raised those concerns with the school in an email in mid-March.
He told the school’s principal, Tim Wozney, he had thought the grad fees would be used to rent the ceremonial garb and asked how the practice of buying the single-use items squared with the school's commitment to environmental sustainability.
He also asked if alternatives had been explored and whether his daughter could opt out of the purchase.
Unsatisfied with the school’s response, Ella and Claude took their concerns to the school board.
Sustainability Strategic Plan
“Every year you are adding thousands of single-use caps and gowns that will just end up in our landfill. The resources used to make these products will never be recovered,” Claude said in a March 30 letter to the board.
Board chair Jen Mezei wrote back more than a month later, saying individual schools have contracts for grad cap and gown rentals or purchases.
“These decisions are made at the school level, and many schools have existing multi-year contracts,” Mezei wrote. “As you may be aware, the board recently approved a Sustainability Strategic Plan that will be part of future contract considerations.”
Claude and his daughter then appeared at a virtual public school board meeting last night (Tuesday) to present trustees with a 162-name petition saying the signatories didn’t support the use of the single-use caps and gowns and that using them wasn’t consistent with their goal of environmental sustainability.
“Basically, we weren’t very happy about this mandatory purchase of the cap and gown,” Claude told trustees at the meeting. “I believe the school board needs to take responsibility on this. You can’t just let schools make their own decisions.”
Trustee Ryan Stewart agreed waste from disposable products, particularly textile items, was a major global environmental concern but said there wasn’t “a single simple answer” to the cap and gown issue.
He cited unknowns about the cost and environmental impacts of shipping, dry-cleaning and storing re-useable gowns
But trustee Christine Cunningham pointed out the option of no caps and gowns should also be considered.
Mezei noted the school district’s first-ever Sustainability Strategic Plan, adopted in February and designed reduce the district’s environmental impact, includes a call for updated procurement standards to purchase sustainable goods and services.
“I think, moving forward, it’s something that will be considered and something that I’m sure we’ll be having future conversations on,” Mezei said.
‘There’s no reason they should be continuing this’
By the end of the meeting, however, the board had not initiated any specific response to the concern.
Claude was frustrated.
“I would like to see a bit more commitment,” he told the NOW. “What’s the point of a sustainability strategy if you don’t even monitor it?”
Claude said he has already conceded nothing can be done to stop the purchases this year, but he wants the board to put a stop to them in the future.
“There’s no reason they should be continuing this,” he said.
He noted some families he’s talked to already have multiple caps and gowns, but the school’s policy forces them to buy more.
Like Cunningham, Claude said the district should be open to not having caps and gowns at all if renting turns out not to be viable.
He said his grad class didn’t wear caps and gowns when he graduated in Richmond in the 1980s.
Alpha Secondary is in the last year of a multi-year contract with the company providing the school’s caps and gowns this year, according to the school district.
“We will review the way we look at caps and gowns for graduation and the factors involved, including the impact on the environment,” Wozney said in an emailed statement to the NOW.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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