![The Wayland Police Department have issued a warning on the rise of scammers during the holiday season. “Hang up [the phone]. if you get a text and you do not know who it's from, just delete it. Don't click on any links, nothing,” Wayland police chief Edward Burman said. “Every single one of them is a scam.”](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/img_0954_720-e1734676255647.jpg)
![WHS’s Connect Program ran its annual holiday gift drive to fulfill the wishlist of children enrolled in the Dorchester based non-profit daycare organization, the Yawkey Center. This drive brought the town together and impacted both the students in Connect, as well as the greater Wayland community. “You could see how helpful the town was and how our community came together and wanted to help out a community that wasn't our own [and] kids who were less fortunate than we were,” senior and Connect Program member Jordynn Lee said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/screenshot_2024-12-20_at_12.21.24___pm_720-e1734734228474.png)
![The Boy Scouts will be selling trees on Fridays from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays noon to 6 p.m. until they sell out.
“This event is one of the things that [the Boy Scouts] get to have a direct impact on the community,” freshman Alex Macleod said.](https://waylandstudentpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-11-at-8.38.38 AM.png)
The Good News: Week of Feb. 22
Credit: Elizabeth Zhong
In these days, we are all in desperate need of some good news. So, join WSPN’s Alyssa Dickstein as she shines light on one piece of cheerful news every week.
The media is too often flooded with bad news. The daily news cycle pushes headlines of devastation and destruction rather than togetherness or kindness. In a world where our phones alert us every time news breaks, wouldn’t it be better if this news made us smile rather than contemplate throwing our phones across the room? Through its column “The Good News,” WSPN’s Alyssa Dickstein tries to counteract all this bad news with a weekly story that boasts good news. Hopefully, you’ll smile and renew a little bit of your faith in the world as you read along.
The construction industry is one of the largest contributors to the global air pollution crisis. In order to counteract this issue, two global initiatives, Carbon Craft Design in India and Gjenge Makers in Kenya, have engineered sustainable, nearly 100% recycled building materials.
Carbon Craft Design’s innovative technology extracts black carbon from the atmosphere and engineers it into building tiles, in effect simultaneously clearing the air of pollutants and recycling. To create the tiles, the company powders the extracted black carbon and combines it with cement and marble waste from local quarries. Another company, Gjenge Makers, has also recently made strides towards sustainability with its plastic waste bricks. Reuters reports that these multi density polyethylene bricks are five to seven times stronger than concrete. What is polyethylene? It’s anything from the light-density plastic of sandwich bags to the high-density plastic of flip flops. Since virtually any form of plastic waste can be incorporated into the bricks, Gjenge Makers has seen a significant decrease in area plastic pollution since opening the doors of its factory in 2017.
“I was tired of being on the sidelines,” the Gjenge Makers founder said.
There are countless benefits to this technology. Among them, slowing global warming, purifying air quality and improving public health.
Reducing air pollution + Recycling = Good news
Today’s stories come from CNN’s article “This company is making building tiles out of polluted air” and Reuters’ article “Kenyan recycles plastic waste into bricks stronger than concrete.”
Your donation will support the student journalists of Wayland High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment, cover our annual website hosting costs and sponsor admission and traveling costs for the annual JEA journalism convention.
Alyssa Dickstein, Class of 2021, is a third year reporter and second year editor for WSPN. She writes for the publication’s columns “The Good News”...
Elizabeth Zhong, Class of 2021, is this year’s graphic designer for WSPN. She is the president of Student Council, co-President of the Tri-M Music Honor...