Small Changes, Big Impact: Earth Week 2026

“We wanted to bring more awareness to Earth Week,” shared All-School Environmental Representative Lorelei D. ’26. “What you can do on an individual level, like small changes every day, will ultimately help with the bigger movement to help save the environment.”

It was in that spirit that Marlborough’s Environmental Council planned Earth Week 2026. From April 20-24, Environmental Council—comprised of a student representative from each grade and their faculty advisor— brought a week of events, initiatives, and speakers to the entire community. The goal was simple: provide education about sustainability that made it feel exciting and accessible.

The week, by design, was built for everyone. “It was really a giant collaboration of all the council members' ideas and things they wanted to do,” Lorelei reflected. The events included: terracotta pot decorating, a clothing drive to stock Sally’s Closet (a schoolwide thrift shop), technology recycling, keychain making, letter-writing to policymakers, playing eco-action bingo, a fundraiser bake sale, and meaningful guest speakers. 

It also marked the second year of Fork Week, Marlborough’s bring-your-own-fork initiative to eliminate single-use plastic utensils for the week. The Environmental Council worked with the Senior Leadership Team of administrators at Marlborough to encourage the School to find ways to reduce single-use plastics on campus.

The numbers behind this initiative are striking. “There is a statistic that was calculated: the average Marlborough 7th grader will see over 1.7 million utensils hit the landfill by graduation [with the current use rate], that’s a lot,” noted the Council’s faculty advisor Holly Rothschild. Fork Week served as a reminder that simple, repeatable choices add up, and that a whole community making the same small change can amount to something significant.  

Earth Week also saw guest speakers welcomed to campus for Pushing Perspectives, bringing thought-provoking voices to campus to explore new ideas and challenge assumptions.

First, Hang Out Do Good (HODG) Club hosted Linda Piangiani and Sofia Flores-Rojas of the Hollywood Food Coalition, an organization that rescues food waste and redistributes it in an effort to expand access, reduce waste, and support communities that are left out of traditional food systems. HODG has partnered with the Hollywood Food Coalition and hosted lunch-making stations throughout the school year, including during Spirit Week, and students learned more about where those lunches go and how it helps those experiencing food insecurity in LA.

Later in the week, the Environmental Council welcomed Adam Taubenfliegel of Triarchy, a sustainable denim clothing brand. Triarchy aims to reshape the denim industry by creating the world's only plastic-free stretch denim, made with organic and recycled cotton. 

“We started Triarchy as a vehicle to show the denim industry that you can have the jeans you know and love without all of the harmful processes that go into making them,” Mr. Taubenfliegel shared with students. He described the many sustainable practices of the brand and current issues with the greater fashion industry’s environmental impact. 

“The presentation was really great,” 10th Grade Environmental Representative Alexis S. ’28 shared. “Mr. Taubenfliegel brought some samples of his product and told us all about the production of it and how consumers are being sustainable when they purchase it. He also talked to us about the new technology that they just started using, which is laser printing on a sheet of denim and dying the fabric at the molecular level.”

Students asked about sustainable fashion practices they could take part in as high school students. Mr. Taubenfliegel offered: “Thrifting is the best for many reasons, the top is that there's so much available. If you're thrifting and you're finding polyester items, it's better to buy it that way because it was already produced and you're not creating the same demand cycle for new products.”

That sentiment couldn’t have been more appropriate. Sally’s Closet, Marlborough’s Earth Week thrift store, was in full swing just moments later. Students and staculty alike browsed racks of community-donated clothing, immediately putting the week’s lessons into practice.

“Our goal was to bring the community together in a way that also builds a sense of awareness,” Alexis said. Earth Week 2026 did exactly that, proving that while individual choices like thrifting and reducing plastic are essential, these efforts can build when the whole community joins in. By fostering a culture of shared responsibility, the events and initiatives planned by the Environmental Council help Marlborough honor the planet and work together to make a difference.