The Neersyde has gone to the green side (which is better than the dark side, right?). Whether our on line version of The Neersyde takes root (Get it? More tree/green humor?) depends upon you, our readership, so read on! We are going to now answer all the questions we anticipate you having about the new green Neersyde.

“Ewwww! Like, why is it so important that we go green? Green is gross.”

Only ask Middle School Science Department Chair Gabriele St. Martin who walks the walk when it comes to green journalistic practices. Says St. Martin, “Even though I love the touch and feel of my Sunday newspapers, I’ve ordered that my subscription be sent only online!” Mrs. St. Martin went on to explain the dire ramifications of not taking these steps: first, it takes a lot of paper and ink to print newspapers. Second, even though newspapers can be effectively recycled, most people do not properly recycle them. What that means is that on average, 41% of landfills are full of paper that could have/should have been recycled. Think about how much landfill space that could conserve!

We know what you’re thinking: “Yeah, yeah, it’s great that they’re doing a green paper, but if The Neersyde staff doesn’t hand out the paper at dismissal, I’m never going to bother finding it online and reading it.” Not so, says Mrs. St. Martin, who speculates that “as society becomes more and more accustomed to using the Internet as a news source, students and parents will be more likely to read their news over the Internet, including our newspaper!”

Think about this too, all you people who are attached to holding your copy of The Neersyde in your hands: every year the Benjamin Middle School buys about 1,150 copies of the school newspaper (the printer at the publisher is so high tech that it spits out over a thousand papers at minimum, so we cannot order less), but only gives about 300 copies to the students and parents. The newspaper cost for each edition is $1,194.00. Instead of using this money for paper, we could improve our green practices. We could get water spigots by the Buc Café, buy commercial dishwashers so that we could wash and reuse china plates for parties, and cultivate more gardens for growing healthy goods.

Any step that The Benjamin School can take to becoming more “green” in practice is a positive step for the school, including posting our newspapers online. It may be a bummer to some people that we are moving online, but it is cleaner, greener, and more cost-effective.

“Ok, ok, so it’s cheaper and good for the environment, but what’s so great about the new online version of The Neersyde?” We’re glad you asked that. The new online version has many great new features the hard copy paper did not: it will be available on any device (laptop, smart phone, tablet, etc.), have up-to-the-minute real-time news, photo galleries of events, relevant videos, and information about our staff. So now that you’re here, stay awhile and take a look around – we think you’ll like what you see!