Eco-Bins

2014, SAN ANDRES DE GILES, BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA

The aim of this project is to educate kindergarten and elementary school students on separating waste by designing special bins with different characters that catch the attention of the children. These cartoons or characters will have a name and will contain an mp3 device that will deliver a message every time plastic is thrown inside of it. The system also has a sensor to count and display the amount of plastic thrown in by students, thus raising awareness on recycling plastic.

This project was implemented with the help of “Open Electronics Laboratory of the Engineering Department of the University of Buenos Aires” and the group “Viralata” (Luisa Bohorquez and Sebastian Perez) who collaborated with the design; the messages were created by the students.

Environmental Sustainability: Awareness (2)

2014 Solis, Buenos Aires, Argentina

This project proposes a solution to the problem of classifying and separating garbage in a small town called Solis. The students proposed an awareness campaign that outlined the benefits of separating garbage at schools and at home. They started within the school by visiting every class, and explaining the benefits of separating garbage and how to distinguish between organic and inorganic materials.

The students also proposed to create a database of the quantity of garbage produced by the school. This would be broken down by weight of the garbage, and categorized by organic and inorganic waste. This database would illustrate the reduction of landfill garbage over time, and hopefully influence students and staff to start separating garbage in their own homes as well.

The awareness campaign broadened its scope when it was highlighted by the local radio station. Previous to the launch of this campaign, Caring For our Watershed’s brought in an expert on communication and media advertisement to explain and help the students to prepare their own campaign.

The students also received 2 different coloured bags to distribute throughout town, and further help the community to separate their organic and inorganic materials too. The students began distribution with restaurants, stores and family homes.

The mayor of the town is even getting more involved with their idea, and the hope is that the entire town will start separating their garbage.

“Compost!”

2013 Hamiota, Manitoba, Canada

Gage, Brady, and Cody, students at Hamiota Collegiate, discovered that most of what’s in their school garbage can actually be composted.

These students proposed purchasing an outdoor composter for their school, noting that education is an important part of the process; a school-wide promotion plan was part of their proposal. “This way if the students know all of the things that would normally go into the garbage at the school now they would be composted and put back in to the environment.” The environmental benefits of composting are numerous, but for these students reducing garbage is key:”this would help the environment because the items would decompose faster n the compost than they would in the landfills.”

Thanks to contribution from Nutrien, Hamiota Collegiate now has an outdoor composter and a school-wide compost program! along with the compost program they have decided that they want to plant and maintain a garden on school property throughout the summer months and into the fall so they can benefit from the nutrient rich composted material.

Project Bottle (2012)

2013 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Dag Sinclair and Jason Quinn saw an opportunity for their school to use less plastic bottles. They proposed that all 700 students at their school receive a re-usable metal water bottle. These water bottles were a perfect complement to the school’s new spigot-style water fountains that another student won for their school two years ago.

Dag and Jason shared the following water bottle statistics, from the website Green Upgrader: “Plastic water bottles take over 700 years to begin composting; 90 of the cost of a bottled water is the bottle itself; 80% of plastic water bottles are not recycled; 38,000,000 plastic bottles go to the dump per year in America from bottled water; 24,000,000 gallons of oil are needed to produce 1,000,000 plastic bottles; the average American consumes 167 bottles of water a year.” With that in mind, they felt it was important to “use personal metal water bottles that can be refilled and reused for long periods of time to reduce the use of plastic water bottles and reduce the effects of plastic water bottles and their contents on people and the environment.”

Thanks to a contribution from Nutrien, the school was able to provide a re-usable water bottle for every student. even better, Dag and Jason were able to talk to their principal to make sure that next year’s new grade nine students will receive a water bottle too!

“The goal is to provide the students with metal water bottles that will be paid for from the money granted from the contest this year and the following years in the students fees.”

Students Stop Organic Waste From Going Into Landfill

2013 Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia

The Environmental Action Team at Warrnambool Special Developmental School, (WWEB Patrol), was a finalist in the 2013 Caring for Our Watersheds competition.

The students realised the potential of reducing the amount of rubbish going into landfill by stopping organic waste entering the equation. They knew that by removing organic waste from landfill bins the amount would be reduced but they wanted to know by how much.

Firstly, over a ten week period, the students measured out a total of 172kg of organic waste entering landfill. From this, the students decided they would redirect the organic waste in a sustainable way, by obtaining compost bins and worm farms.

A number of ‘kitchen caddies’ were purchased and placed next to the rubbish bins to help remind people that they should be putting organic waste in these bins, to be later composted and used on the vegetable garden at school, or put in the worm farm to create worm juice, or simply fed to the school chooks.

Not only did they redirect the organic waste they also aimed to educate the school community on a weekly basis. Each week the school newsletter continues to give hints and tips for recycling at home and also informs parents of the student’s efforts at school, in terms of sustainability.

One student says, “Our project is ongoing and continues to grow. This has been made easier and more effective with the generosity of the Caring for our Watersheds program.”

“Green” Education for Life

2013, San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina

This project emphasizes the early teaching of environment care to kindergarten students. It aims to teach the students about nature and simple ways to take care of it. One example is by making vegetable gardens that are built with disposable materials. This project also implements puppet shows and plays to captivate students while also creating awareness.

CNC assisted in the project by putting the students in contact with two plastic artists. These artists helped the students create a “square garden” with puppets for the puppet shows/plays and an “owl” that illustrates different images of birds and trees.

Reusable Bags

2012 Antelope, California, USA

Saterra Larsen, of Antelope High School, is concerned about excessive plastic bag pollution in her watershed. Her Caring for Our Watersheds idea was two-fold: to educate the public on the harmful effects of plastic bags and to promote the use of reusable bags. The site would be one of the busiest grocery/general stores in her community, the Wal-Mart supercenter. With the help of two other Antelope students, Kayla Miller and Megan Fairchild, she set up a table outside of the local store to distribute reusable bags for a voluntary donation. By using this free gift as a way to make contact with community members, they educated about the detrimental results of common plastic bag use and the great benefits of reusable sacks.

Vermicomposting Project

2012 Arlington, Virginia, USA

Sixth graders at Swanson Middle School felt it was important to address the problem of organic waste leaching from landfills as a source of Chesapeak Bay nutrient loads. noting that 14% of U.S. trash is from food scraps, they decided to promote composting using worm bins. They built a worm bin at school, and used it to demonstrate a simple vermicomposting method, crating artwork to promote it in the school community and offering free starter worms from their bin for anyone interested to try it.

Pet Waste Disposal Project

2012 Arlington, Virginia, USA

Sixth graders at Kenmore Middle School aimed to address bacterial contamination in Four Mile Run by repurposing used plastic bags for pet waste disposal at local dog parks. Collecting bags from the school community and neighbors, they were able to donate roughly 10,000 gabs to Arlington Dogs for this purpose.

Environmental Sustainability: Awareness

2012 Villa Lia, Buenos Aires, Argentina

This project, presented by the rural school N3 located in Villia Lia, was to improve the new schools building energy performance by installing a solar heating system, using internal and eternal insulating material, and strategic planting of trees. Apart from communicating their actions to the community, the students also proposed a law that would force new schools in the jurisdiction to take these implementations into consideration; a local provincial senator was involved in the proposal process.

In order to begin the implementation of this project, the students arranged a meeting with the school principal to install an internal and external sensor. This sensor measures a number of factors such as temperature, relative humidity, direction and speed of wind, and precipitation, among other things. The project intention is for students to be able to develop a database that allows them to evaluate the results of the proposed implementations over time. The students also proposed the creation of a class that studies the mathematics, physics and statistics supporting environmental sustainability issues and management.

To collaborate in the implementation, CNC commissioned a sustainability audit of the building by the architect Guillermo Duran, a specialist in sustainable architecture. With this audit, CNC is going to create educational material for all students that are part of the watershed.