Local leaders, businesses, and students take steps to protect Johns Creek’s environment and mitigate climate change

Melissa Liu, Managing Print & Design Editor & Bedansh Pandey, News Editor

Nearly 10 years ago, driving down Bell Road to Northview High School was a tranquil journey — the sides of roads were lush with trees and leaves, the crisp, morning smell of dew wafted through the air, and nature was at its prime. But today, there has been an evident change. With new residential areas spawning where forests used to be, and a hint of soot in the air that used to be fresh, residents point out that large-scale urbanization has degraded the environment of the city. This is not a unique trend by any means; many suburban cities like Johns Creek are becoming less green. But through business, policy, and education, the community is taking steps to restore the environment to what it once was and battle the larger enemy of climate change. 

Policy

Representing Post 4 in the City Council, Councilman Chris Coughlin has been a proponent of environmental preservation within Johns Creek since being elected in 2017. Specifically, he has advocated for the Green Rules Initiative created by the Atlanta Regional Commission, an agency that manages all of the cities in the Atlanta region to collaborate and tackle similar problems. 

“We’re essentially trying to become an Atlanta Regional Commission ‘Green Community’. The program’s vision and mission are to promote measures and apply measures that encourage local governments to work towards reducing environmental impact through its policies,” Coughlin said. “But it is also supposed to enable those local governments to encourage its community to reduce its environmental impact.”

Coughlin notes that another part of the Atlanta Regional Commission’s program is establishing a public education outreach on sustainability. This includes the promotion of energy audits for individual households to gauge how much energy they expend, and for residents to become aware of financial rebates from their utility providers. For example, Sawnee EMC, a utility provider, provides a load switch to its customers in which electricity bills are reduced, and during the peak of summer, air conditioning is shut off for six minutes of every hour during prime use — all in an effort to promote sustainable energy consumption. Coughlin holds that these practices extend all the way to the heart of Johns Creek at City Hall. 

“We created a new city hall and worked with an organization called Southface, a  nonprofit that focuses on sustainability. They performed an energy audit for us, and this had a  twofold impact,” Coughlin said. “It identified 12 different things we could do to improve the energy use of City Hall as a whole, with simple fixes such as insulation to automated lights when there is no movement after a certain number of minutes. It also saved us a substantial amount of maintenance and operation costs.”

Similar to Councilman Coughlin, Councilwoman Erin Elwood notes that, though it is not plausible for one city to end climate change as a whole, there are certain steps that Johns Creek is taking to show its residents that they can live a lifestyle that is supportive of the environment such as that of the energy audit at City Hall. To her, this also means implementing a series of nuanced solutions that are tailored to the environmental problems unique to the city. At their annual retreat last year, the city council identified stormwater as a major pollutant and detriment to the locality. 

“Normally, when the land isn’t developed, it just falls downhill and goes to creeks and rivers. But the problem is with so much development of houses and especially roads, all the water gets channeled into pipes that cause a lot of erosion, and then it enters the Johns Creek itself and pollutes that, which will then enter the [Chattahoochee River],” Elwood said. “With that being a major source of our drinking water, we want to not pollute the water sources.”

The land areas that drain into bodies of water such as the Chattahoochee River are called watersheds, and they are consequential to the water quality of the communities they are in. The city has created a Stormwater Management Program with a set of robust policies that address erosion and sediment control and stormwater management systems to create cleaner water for all residents of Johns Creek. 

Aside from regulating water quality, another concern for the Council has been the vast deforestation within the city. Trees are paramount to a healthy environment, as they produce oxygen and sequester carbon dioxide to reduce the overall concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Recognizing the importance of these trees, in February of 2020, the Council discussed implementing a tree ordinance, through which people and businesses in Johns Creek will be required to get approval from the city before cutting a tree down. 

“Right now if you want to cut down trees on your property, you can do that without getting city permission or a permit unless you live in the Chattahoochee River Buffer. Then you have to get city permission,” Elwood said. “But anyone else outside the Chattahoochee River Buffer can do so without permission.” 

Unfortunately, the tree ordinance plan was put on hold after the pandemic struck. For Sabrina Melendez, the youth education director for Trees Atlanta, a nonprofit organization working to address Atlanta’s tree loss and protect its forests, preserving green spaces in municipalities has not been hindered by the pandemic. 

Trees Atlanta essentially has three main pillars as an organization: planting trees, conservation, and education. Melendez’s role at Trees Atlanta falls under the third pillar, education. She reaches out to schools, going to these schools during the day, and taking the students outside to learn more about the importance of trees and nature as a whole. Melendez believes that education is one of the foremost priorities of environmental sustainability. 

“If we don't know about what's going on around us, we won't know if we need to do anything to help our environment. We won’t understand where we live, and we also don't understand the issues that are on the US, and also the foundation of our environment and our ecosystem,” Melendez said. “We're not going to be able to make informed decisions later on [without education].” 

Melendez explains that the students she speaks with are often blown away by the importance of trees, and it inculcates a sense of respect in these children towards the environment. For example, she describes how the screens on our phones and computers, rubber on the bottom of our shoes, and even the chocolate that we enjoy are products made from trees.

Aside from education, Trees Atlanta created a program called Site Yard Tree, in which residents of Atlanta can sign up to get a free front-yard tree of their choice, which Trees Atlanta will plant and take care of on their behalf. All in all, the organization has planted nearly 140,000 trees as part of similar programs. Another key part of the Trees Atlanta is restoration — the organization has 30 restoration sites all across metro Atlanta aimed at restoring habitats in areas where they have been created. 

“Right now we're taking on a new initiative that's called the 1 million trees initiative, so our goal is to plant and save at least 1 million trees by 2030,” Melendez said. “And we're not doing that by ourselves; we are also working with other nonprofits and cities [such as] the City of Atlanta, East City of College Park, Georgia Conservancy, The Conservation Fund, and many others.”

For both Elwood and Melendez, these environmental preservation initiatives are not just a professional concern; they are also personal. Instilling a sense of responsibility for the environment in the younger generations, they believe, is the cornerstone for reversing the impacts of climate change.

“I have a 6-year-old, and I think about if he’s going to live the kind of life I lived, or maybe his life won’t be as ravaged by climate change, but maybe he’s going to live to see his children or grandchildren dealing with that,” Elwood said. “It really stresses me out, and it would all be better if we took a long view of the people who come after us rather than just thinking about ourselves in the moment.”

Businesses

Over a year ago, Hannah Kim, a senior at Northview, and her friend Hannah Lee started an Instagram account, @han.dselected, where they promote environmentally sustainable fashion among young people by selling secondhand clothes. Kim sources from local thrift stores like Goodwill and online thrifting platforms like Poshmark and Depop, aside from selling her own clothes. Although she does not profit much from this endeavor, she takes pride in ensuring her customers enjoy shopping secondhand and continue to do so in the future through her product descriptions, pictures, and packaging.

“I try my best to write a little, cute note and package it nicely so that when they get it's so that it's a positive experience,” Kim said.

By showing young people that thrifting, whether online or in-person, is enjoyable, she hopes to steer them away from supporting fast fashion, the rapid mass production of cheap, disposable clothing. Kim is concerned about the widespread use of this model in the fashion industry because it has directly contributed to climate change through fossil fuel emissions and led to water pollution by chemicals and dyes used in the manufacturing process.

“I can't imagine at what scale they're [polluting the environment], so it's just really scary because I know that,” she said. “How are we supposed to return from this? They've already caused so much damage to our world.”

Kim observes that fast fashion brands often pay influencers to promote their new products on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to make them seem more trendy, and as a result, young people feel the need to frequently buy clothes from them.

“People's mindset when they're buying things, in our age at least, is fueled by social media and whatever is popular right now,” she said. “Companies are purposely pushing out new things that are only temporary, and people will buy immediately because it's not only cheap; it's also a brand that has a lot of popularity.”

For Kim, running a secondhand clothing business is a way to share her passion for environmentally sustainable fashion and counteract this tendency to purchase unnecessary clothing. She believes raising awareness of overconsumption is especially important in an affluent community like Johns Creek, where many people buy most of their clothing from fast fashion companies despite being able to afford more sustainable alternatives.

“A lot of people in our area think things are disposable because they're cheap,” Kim said. “They don’t necessarily need to buy new from [fast fashion companies like] Shein but resort to buying from these brands because it’s really cheap, and they can buy a bunch of things at once.”

She urges young people in the community to fight against climate change by shopping secondhand, noting that there is enough clothing in online and in-person thrift stores for everyone in the country to build their own wardrobes if they wanted to.

“There's still a huge majority of people our age who are just going straight up to Shein or zooming to Princess Polly instead of [checking] Poshmark and Depop or eBay first,” Kim said. “If people don't start being more conscious about where they're buying from, then we might not be able to revert back the changes that we made and the damage.”

But attempts to create environmentally conscious entrepreneurial endeavors are not solely limited to the clothing industry. In fact, junior Stella Chen from Alpharetta has shown that it is also possible in teenagers’ most lucrative beverage: boba tea. 

Chen’s mother opened a boba tea shop called Bubbly Boba on Kimball Bridge Road, which Chen started managing in the fall. Bubbly Boba began just as any other tea shop — with copious amounts of waste through packaging and ingredients. To combat this, Chen developed plant-based drinks from freshly made, organic soy milk and oat milk and is currently experimenting with coconut sugar and maple syrup, potentially the most sustainable sweeteners. She also began composting, a process through which organic solid wastes are decomposed. Specifically, Bubbly Boba composts tea leaves, its leftover tapioca boba, as well as other paper products such as hand towels. Unfortunately, such composting has been especially difficult in Chen's locality. 

“I actually find it really fascinating how our areas, specifically Alpharetta and Johns Creek, don't have a city-level composting system, which is really pretty horrific when you think about it because all of this stuff that we throw in the trash goes directly to [a] landfill,” Chen said. “Sending stuff to landfills is basically stopping one of nature’s natural cycles, which is returning things back to the Earth, and composting continues with that cycle.” 

However, she has plans to work with the city and other restaurants to set up private composting. In fact, Chen believes that making a restaurant more environmentally sustainable is not very hard at all. If they pay even a little more attention to the sheer amount of waste they produce, she observes, they would be able to reduce it. 

“[For example,] the plastic bags can be reused; trash bags and containers can be reused for other things. I don't think it's that big a deal to just identify the issue and try to do something about it,” Chen said.

She also manages the Alpharetta High School garden, where she and her peers were going to get compost bins that would have been enough to take care of Bubbly Boba’s waste. However, due to school closures in the midst of the pandemic, these plans have been put on hold. 

It is worth noting that, in the larger fight against climate change, Chen believes her efforts are not futile at all. She is able to visibly see the amount of waste that has been cut down from Bubbly Boba. For example, the tea shop uses tiny, two-gallon bags that are thrown out every single day whereas one year ago it was still using the standard 40-gallon trash bags that most restaurants use. 

“The question should be more like why wouldn't you want to implement sustainable practices into your life? The word ‘sustainable’ literally means something that can last long into the future, so if we're practicing unsustainable daily habits, then I don't know why we wouldn't want to put a stop to them,” Chen said. “I don't think it's very difficult to just make small changes in your life that over time will make a much bigger, better difference for the future.” 

School

Like many students at Northview, sophomore Vidhi Tiwary is deeply concerned about the increasing rate of climate change and the lack of measures people have taken to address it.

“You just have to see one picture of what's going on in the Arctic or in the rainforest [or] anyplace, and immediately your heart goes ‘Wow, this is really happening,’” she said. “My kids are going to think polar bears are magical creatures, and it's so sad knowing how fast and how drastically our future is changing.”

Tiwary often feels overwhelmed when she thinks about the serious and far-reaching effects of climate change, especially since many people are not yet aware of the enormous environmental impact their everyday choices have.

“You realize how prevalent this issue is. It's in our towns; it's in our homes,” Tiwary said, “You might not even know, but the one thing you're doing in your own house contributes to pollution [and] climate change.”

She first realized the extent to which humans have polluted the Earth when she was visiting her grandma in India as a 10-year-old.

“I looked [outside], and there's this big mound of garbage. I'm talking like 35 feet [tall], and people are living in it. Immediately I had to know what it was, and why there was so much trash,” she said. “I was in shock. India is such a beautiful location, and then you see stuff like that, and it immediately breaks your heart.”

From that day on, Tiwary resolved to be a firm advocate for environmental protection, and this year, she co-founded Northview’s Environmental Club with sophomore Sofia Mang because of her desire to make an impact in preventing climate change and pollution. Tiwary believes in influencing students and teachers around her to be more environmentally conscious and actively take measures to protect the local environment, no matter how insignificant these efforts may seem at first glance.

“You just start small,” she said. “I think ‘What can I do first?’ From there, ‘How can I tell my friends to do this?’ With this club that I now have, ‘How can I get [club members] to learn about this and also not do it?’ It may not be an arm's length of change, but it's some form of change.”

Last semester, Tiwary and Mang visited Amberleigh, Highland Park, The Reserve at Foxdale, and The Gates, all neighborhoods in the Johns Creek area, to inform the residents about neighborhood recycling regulations. They helped set up areas where residents can drop off items, such as glass, that are non-recyclable according to these regulations but can be picked up and recycled elsewhere.

“I know [at] a lot of neighborhoods, there's actually a lot of limitations on recycling; you can't recycle everything,” Tiwary said. “So we told them ‘In your neighborhoods take the initiative, find out what can be recycled, and set up a recycling area for those items that can't be recycled.’”

She also wanted to reach out to small businesses near Northview and help them to join this recycling initiative, but unfortunately, the spike in COVID-19 cases after Thanksgiving Break forced her to delay her plans. Although school restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 limit club activity, Tiwary still holds monthly meetings with the members of the Environmental Club to discuss how they can protect the environment locally, and they recently signed up as volunteers for Trees Atlanta.

“It's a wonderful teaching experience as well as volunteering experience because it's a first-hand experience on how exactly planting more and more trees and maintaining those areas actually helps,” Tiwary said.

This semester, she also has plans to plant a memorial garden at a nearby funeral home where formerly enslaved persons were buried and work with Elwood to start a community project that focuses on protecting the environment. One idea that Tiwary wants to propose, after seeing the amount of compostable food Northview students threw away after lunch, was to bring community composting to Johns Creek.

“A lot of food is wasted in the cafeteria that can be compostable,” she said. “If we explain our immense gratitude and need for compost, that is something I hope [Elwood] can achieve.”

Tiwary wishes Northview would also encourage the recycling of plastic utensils and containers by setting up recycle bins in the cafeteria since there are currently only bins in classrooms. Aside from what occurs during lunch, though, she believes the school does a decent job of protecting the environment, as Northview Principal Brian Downey frequently reminds students and staff to reduce paper usage, turn off lights when possible, and recycle. Like Tiwary, he thinks one of the biggest ways Northview could improve is by reducing its food waste by reusing it elsewhere, recalling the time he attended a local summer camp as the inspiration for this solution.

“We had to separate all of our unused food from our trash because that got fed to the livestock,” Downey said. “A farm would come to pick it up on a daily level the big huge bin of food, and they would just feed it to their animals.”

Downey also tries to keep the environment in mind while he manages the school’s budget, preferring to buy cleaning materials and other products that are environmentally friendly.

“All the products that we got from our paper towels to our toilet paper to our cleaning solutions minimize the impact on the environment,” he said.

In 2009, he approved a grant that gave former Northview science teacher Katie Thompson the means to begin a school recycling program. Thompson used the grant to buy several large recycle bins and asked teachers to keep bins in their classrooms and encourage recycling among students. Although she no longer teaches at Northview, environmental science teacher Camillie Janess and her students continue Thompson’s work. Because she does not have enough bins for every classroom, Janess must distribute them throughout the school so as many people as possible can recycle.

“We tried to do what we could with the resources we had. We would use one bin for classrooms that were joined or in the vicinity of one another,” she said. “Sometimes [we] just put a huge Coca Cola recycle bottle outside vending machines.”

In the past, Janess had her students decorate cardboard boxes as recycle bins to address the shortage of bins, but this has not always worked out, since some people put food and fluids in the boxes when they are not supposed to. Even after the environmental science students visited classrooms to teach their peers about what items are recyclable, this problem persisted.

“This past couple of years, we went as far as putting images on the side of [bins] for recyclables, but whether it was vocalized or whether it was in visualization, there’s still going to be [negligence],” Janess said. “It's very difficult to keep everybody on the right path.”

She and her students must sort the items in the recycle bins to prevent non-recyclables from being collected by Northview’s trash disposal service. Over the years, Downey has continued to support the recycling program by allowing the environmental science students to collect recycle bins during class and approving Janess’ requests for grants. But while he is able to help in some ways, Downey admits that as Northview’s principal, financial concerns ultimately outweigh his desire to protect the environment.

Laurel Rogers, Northview’s Environmental Club sponsor and AP Environmental Science teacher, acknowledges that administrators like Downey face a difficult decision when they must choose between protecting the environment and maintaining a low budget, but hopes their priorities will change in the future.

“It is a really tough balance, and that's where how strongly you value the environmental stuff and what sacrifices you're willing to make [come in] because that money has to come from somewhere else,” Rogers said.

As an AP Environmental Science teacher, she teaches her students how to find this balance between environmental and financial responsibility when they make choices such as whether to buy electric cars, get power from renewable energy sources, or use artificial fertilizers on their lawns.

“We all have a responsibility to try and make the world a better place, and all those little things really do add up,” Rogers said. “My goal is to make kids more aware of what the problems are, what the solutions are, and what they can personally do, so they can do their part.”

She views environmental science as one of the most important classes students can take in high school because it educates them about issues like climate change and pollution, which are rarely mentioned in other classes. Since not all students take environmental science, Rogers believes the school system should incorporate climate change into general science classes beginning in elementary school, as well as other classes in high school.

“[Environmental science] is probably the most relevant class to your daily life and the world around you. Anytime you pick up the paper, there are so many things going on in the environment, and people are having such a big impact on the world,” she said. “I think it would be great if [climate change] was taught to some extent in a cross-curriculum type of thing.”

For instance, Rogers notes that biology teachers could explain how climate change leads to habitat and biodiversity loss, and language arts teachers could include nonfiction pieces about climate change and pollution when they give students reading assignments. Junior Niyomi Shah agrees that educating students about climate change in different subjects is important, especially given how the world is already seeing the effects of climate change.

“I think it can definitely be incorporated in math. You could show the impact through a percentage,” Shah said. “It could definitely be incorporated in government class. They can teach about different [climate change] policies that could be enacted, so it shouldn't just be limited science.”

Last March, she and four other Northview students started a school garden behind the tennis courts with Janess’ help. Together, they fundraised $250 to buy seeds and gardening tools and enlisted the help of Beta Club members. The students repainted the garden walls, pulled out weeds, and planted new seeds in the soil, and a volunteer from Pike Nurseries, a local garden center, taught them how to maintain the garden.

Left: Students plant seeds in Northview's school garden. Right: Junior Anshi Vajpayee (left) and senior Julie Wu (right) pull out weeds.
Photos courtesy of Niyomi Shah

“[We were] really wanting to make an impact on and give back to the community,” Shah said. “We hope through what we've put together, we can further help the environment.”

For two months, Shah and the other students regularly watered the garden plants, which included radishes and cilantro, but after COVID-19 hit, they were unable to continue taking care of the plants. Although the pandemic has in many ways limited what members of Northview’s community can do to combat climate change, Rogers is optimistic about what her students can accomplish in the future.

“I'm hoping that young people are realizing what an impact they have,” Rogers said. “[This] generation can really make things happen, and I'm excited about them.”