Timber Creek, Triton Recognized For Environmental Efforts

Gloucester Township, NJ -- Two schools in the Black Horse Pike Regional School District has two United States Department of Education and New Jersey Department of Education Green Ribbon schools, the district announced. It is one of only two districts in the state to accomplish that feat.

Both Triton Regional and Timber Creek Regional high schools have consecutively been recognized nationally and regionally because of their environmental stewardship.

The entire district, which also includes Highland Regional High School, also recently achieved Bronze status for environmental stewardship by Jersey for Sustainable Schools.

Each school established green teams made up of students, faculty, support staff and supervisory staff focused on ways of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, improving its indoor air quality, and improving the health and wellness of students and staff.

“The Green Team students recognize their role in helping future generations by mitigating greenhouse gases,” Black Horse Pike Regional Superintendent of Schools Dr. Brian Repici said. “The students on the Green Team and our Environmental Team are really an inspiration because to observe their passion to make the world a better place, it gets a whole bunch of us involved and focused towards the same goal.”

The students planted dune grasses last year at Jersey shore points and raised enough money over the past two school years by hosting Water Walks to build a freshwater well in Swaziland, Africa, Repici said.

The schools have organic gardens, and the district has been recognized by the Department of Agriculture for Farm to School efforts, where produce grown in the gardens is used in classroom kitchens, lessons and the cafeteria.

Additionally, the green teams have reduced the district’s use of herbicides and pesticides, changed most of its styrofoam cafeteria trays to compostable materials, increased efforts to recycle and compost, changed irrigation practices to reduce water runoff and waste, installed two rain gardens used as outside learning spaces, and reduced its use of natural gas by scheduling the heating of the schools.

Five years ago, the district entered into an Energy Savings Improvement Plan with the township. That enabled two of the district's schools to get more efficient boiler, and made it possible for Triton and Timber Creek to get solar panels.

The solar panels at Triton are on the roof and the solar panels at Timber Creek constitute a ground array at the front of the school property.

The solar panels account for 45 percent of electricity generated at Triton, and 58 percent of electricity generated at Timber Creek.

In all, Timber Creek reduced its metric tons of carbon dioxide per person by 69 percent, and Triton reduced its metric tons of carbon dioxide per person by 16 percent since 2012, respectively.

The two high schools were the only two high schools in the state that were also Energy Star rated public institutions. The district restricts vehicle idling, has a Green Purchasing Policy and replaced over 20,000 light bulbs since 2012 to higher efficiency LED fixtures.

The school district has presented at the annual New Jersey School Boards Association convention for the past two years and will do so again this October in Atlantic City.

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