As she stepped up onto the podium in the Civic Theater of Saratoga City Hall on July 5, junior Neha Tadikamalla cleared her throat and began her short speech in hopes of convincing the city council to pass a ban on artificial turf.
A few weeks prior to this city council meeting, Tadikamalla and juniors Aiden Chen and Nicole Lee began drafting the ban artificial turf campaign — which stops the use of harmful plastics — as part of the school’s new Environmental Action Club.
The Environmental Action Club aims to make the planet more environmentally friendly by focusing on state and city-level legislation, Tadikamalla said. The club has written articles on change.org about banning artificial turf and emailed them to board members, attended city council meetings and created petitions with other environmental groups. So far, they have worked with the Sierra Club, Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action Team, Bay Area Youth Climate Action Team, Santa Clara County Medical Association and Fridays for Future Palo Alto.
“We’re currently working on bills about banning artificial turf and a night sky bill to limit the excessive light usage outside [in lamps],” Tadikamalla said. “We’re trying to enact these bills to make them a part of our schools and cities.”
Lee was inspired to create the club in freshman year at the Sierra Club, a national environmental organization dedicated to promoting practical and responsible use of resources. There, she attended city council meetings and made public comments about their campaigns. A couple of weeks later, Tadikamalla and Chen joined Lee in the meetings.
Near the end of their sophomore year, the three created the Environmental Club, a school-wide club modeled after the Sierra Club to reach out to students who were interested in joining.
So far, the club has made four petitions: AB1423 banning toxic PFAs (a type of plastic), AB38 reducing light pollution and SB499 supporting heat mitigating materials, such as replacing artificial turf with real grass.
The AB1423 bill aims to ban the manufacturing, distribution and sale of products containing poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAs), which have numerous health impacts such as cancer, developmental problems, birth defects and kidney damage. It also doesn’t biodegrade and is extremely toxic to the environment.
The SB499 bill would mandate California schools to replace heat absorbent materials, like cement and artificial turf, with non-heat absorbing materials, like wood chips and natural grass. This makes the environments cooler as the heat absorbent materials can go up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit, causing heat exhaustion. In particular, the bill aims to replace all turf with real grass, as the synthetic turf includes PFAs that some critics say cause cancer.
The AB38 bill reduces excessive use of outdoor lighting, which affects billions of migrating birds, by mandating government agencies to optimize their outdoor lighting with automatic shut-offs.
“We wanted to focus our efforts on campaigns that are more closely tied with Saratoga,” Lee said. “We wanted power in numbers for our campaigns to be heard.”
The Sierra Club also provided tips to the three officers to aid their first campaign, banning artificial turf. The campaign included research about the effects of artificial turf on people’s health and the environment.
They began their project by meeting over this summer once a week with a Sierra Club member to advise them, along with a few Los Gatos parents who were interested in helping. Together, the team began to plan what they wanted to achieve over the summer, starting with attending many city council and board meetings to give public comments about their bills.
To gain more recognition for the bills, Chen also created petitions for each. Since June 25, the club has received over 400 signatures for AB38 (light pollution), 38 for SB499 (heat mitigation), 55 for AB1423 (banning toxic PFAs) and 47 for SB499 to replace artificial turf with grass.
Additionally, Lee also wrote an article about banning artificial turf fields at Saratoga High for the Sierra Club. On Sept. 4, Lee’s Letter to the Editor was also published on Mercury News.
“Since this is a topic that affects us students, we wanted Saratoga to be a healthier and safer environment for everyone,” Lee said. “Hopefully, we can set an example for other cities to also adopt these environmentally friendly changes.”
Throughout the summer, Chen, Lee and Tadikamalla contacted the school board and PTSO members with their campaign to ban artificial turf. The campaign included an official letter to the board signed by the Sierra Club and the Santa Clara County Medical Association, giving more credibility to their bills so that it would be taken seriously with more support.
“We’re hoping for more people [from the club] to attend public comments,” Tadikamalla said. “With more people writing articles and personal letters, it’ll show that a lot of people do want to have a greener environment and that we care about our planet.”
