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`Operation: 14degrees Proposed By: 14degrees
1. Reduce utility consumption (Water)
2. Reduce waste output (Paper and Plastic)
Our principle is: ‘Awareness Through Action.’ We aim to raise awareness of environmental issues and create a green culture through self-initiated action that would demonstrate and educate about what can be done to be Youths for Earth.
The theme is the 3 Rs— Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The 3 projects of this Worldview 360: Youth for Earths each would take on one component of the theme.
Organization Structure
14degrees is a group under the Green Committee (GC). All proposed projects by 14degrees will be implemented as a GC project. GC is a committee under the leadership board—National Education Ambassador (NEA). Manpower would be drawn from everyone under this board, since there are 2 NEAs in each class. They would also be the main channel for effective publicity to every class.
PUBLICITY
Class NEAS, emails, announcements, posters, etc would be avenues for publicizing the projects. All other related documents would also have a footer reminder related to the theme and scope of the project as part of raising awareness.
Project Overview
A. Water: Cistern Project
Introduction:The Cistern Project is part of the effort to reduce NUS High School’s utility consumption of water. The school uses about 400,000L (est.) of water monthly just to flush toilets—about 13% of the school monthly water consumption [refer to blog post 'estimating water used for flushing']. Since reducing this part of water consumption is economical and feasible, a significant amount of water can be saved. Our goal is to reduce this water consumption by around 5%.
Water is very precious in the sense that ALL LIFE RELY ON WATER TO SUSTAIN but only less than 1% of the water on earth can be used by human. Excessive water consumption has caused a GLOBAL water crisis and many environmental problems like erosions, degradation of water bodies, and desertification. Reducing water consumption would help to ease the demand of water, hence benefiting the environment and the school.
Program:
14degrees would be adding two 500 ml plastic bottles of water into every toilet cistern. This is a very economical and feasible way of saving water. It practically has no cost for us to bear and is sustainable for many years.
Once sealed, used plastic bottle filled with water would be submerged into the toilets with cisterns. This reduces the amount of water used for flushing.
These bottles would be added to the toilets of level 1 first to be tested and troubleshoot if any issue arises. If after a week passed with positive feedback that the flushing systems are working fine, we would proceed to add these bottles to the rest of the school’s toilets. The only toilets that will not have the bottles would be those with no cisterns.
Besides adding of bottles, we would be putting up laminated posters to:
2. Notify the school students that the 14degrees are adding a bottle into the toilet cistern to raise awareness about such a method of saving water (beside the water cisterns)
|
Week | Action | By: |
July W1 | Collection of plastic bottles | Recycling Bin Project |
July W2 | Adding of bottles with water into Level 1 toilet cisterns. Start of pilot project and troubleshoot | Cistern Project |
July W3 | Adding of bottles with water into Level 2 &3 toilet cisterns | Cistern Project |
July W4 | Adding of bottles with water into Level 4 & 5 toilet cisterns | Cistern Project |
Aug W1 | Adding of bottles with water into toilets in hostel | Cistern Project |
· 100 500ml plastic bottles
· 50 posters
B. Paper: Textbook Re-sales Project
Introduction:
The Textbook Resale Project is part of 14degrees efforts to reduce student’s waste output of paper. Yearly, Students buy new textbooks. However, students may not need the textbooks after getting newer ones next year. Hence, these old books are usually underutilize—wasted.
14degrees would reduce this wastage by creating a system for students to reuse textbooks. Reusing the textbooks would lowers demand on printing and paper. Lesser trees would be chopped down to produce paper, reducing deforestation rate and thus benefiting the environment.
Program:
14degrees would become a middleman for the trade of textbooks in school; with the teacher’s resource room being our storeroom. This Textbook Resale Project would involve 4 phases—Deposition, Selling, Collection and Publicity.
Deposition
During non-sales period, students interested in selling their used textbooks would
1) deposit their textbooks with their class NEA
2) Fill up 2 textbook registration forms
One form would be kept with GC and the other would be kept with the interested seller. The class NEA would then deposit the textbook with the registration form into the central textbook deposition box, located below the staffroom.
Alternatively, interested sellers can download the registration form the Textbook Resale Portal, fill it up and deposit it with the textbook into the central textbook deposition box. The central textbook deposition box will be cleared twice a day. Interested sellers would deposit their books directly to the selling booth, during the sales period.
Registration form:
Full Name: | Class: |
Date: | Email: |
Contact Number: | Remarks: |
Textbook Name: 1)_____________ 2)_____________ 3)_____________ | Textbook Price: 1) 2) 3) (students are advise to quote a price about half of the market price to ensure competitiveness of the books to be sold. Please take into consideration the physical quality of the book too) |
Notes: · If your textbooks have been sold, 14degrees will notify you to collect your. More information will be provided through the email. · However, if your textbook remains unsold by the of the sales period, 14degrees will also sent a notification email to inform you to collect the unsold textbook. ANY UNCOLLECTED TEXTBOOKS WILL BECOME A PROPERTY OF SCHOOL FOR FUTURE SALES | |
A Textbook Resale Project By NEA Green Committee. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle “ Remember to reuse your textbooks” | |
Selling
Before selling, the head of the green committee will compile and collate all the textbooks. The updated list will be posted onto the textbook resale portal daily. The list on the blog would contain the name of seller, their textbook, and the price. A summary list will also be posted on the NEA green committee notice board and will be available at the selling booth during sales period. The summary list will include the name of textbook, quantity of it available and range of prices.
There will be 3 sales period:
The first sales period is after the Year 5 & 6 exams. This is a good time for these seniors to sell their textbooks as studying no longer bothers them and they would have more time to think about selling textbooks. It is also a good time for juniors to buy the textbooks as it is the start of their revising periods.
The second sales period is after the Year 1 – 4 exams. Again these junior would consider selling their textbooks after the exams or buying more textbooks for the next year.
The third sale period would be during NUS High School’s annual Matriculation. This sale is aimed at the incomimg year 1 & 3s who are generally more enthusiastic about school related activities.
All sales will have a format of a garage sale, where most of our available textbooks will be displayed on a table. Textbooks will be arranged by topic and price. The location of the booth will tentatively be at the school canteen. The booth will be manned by NEAs on duty. A duty roster would be create after term 3 begins.
Detailed list format:
Subject | Book Name | Seller Name | Quoted Price |
Subject X | Book A | Seller A | Price A |
Seller B | Price B | ||
Seller C | Price C | ||
Seller D | Price D | ||
Book B | Seller A | Price A | |
Seller B | Price B | ||
Subject: Y | Book C | Seller C | Price C |
Subject | Book | Price range |
Subject X | Book A | A ~ D |
Book B | A ~ B | |
Subject Y | Book C | C |
Any unsold books would have to be collected by 1st December. Emails with further information would be sent to all sellers, whose textbooks are unsold at the end of sales.
Any uncollected textbooks after 1st December would be used for future textbook sale. If a seller needs the book back last minute, he/she can approach the sale booth to withdraw their textbook.
When a book is sold, an email would be sent to the seller the next day to inform of the successful sales. He/she would collect the payment during one of the sale or collection date.
Sellers can email 14degrees or view Textbook Resale Portal to check the status of their textbooks.
Publicity
14degrees will be working with the Publicity and Partnership committee of NEA to publicize the textbook resale system. All publicity revolves around the theme of saving, reducing or reusing paper. All channels of publicity would be used to show the benefits of this system. This would be worked on at a later date as it requires large-scale planning.
Action Plan and Timeline:
Week | Action | By: |
July W 2 | Obtain all NEAs free time | NEA exco |
July W3 | Finalization of textbook resale plans with NEA and Management | Textbook Resale Project; NEA head NEA teacher IC |
July W4 | Planning for publicity | |
Aug W4 | Finalization of publicity | Publicity and Partnership Comm |
Aug W5 | Start of publicity and deposition system. To be continued after term break. | Textbook resale Project; Publicity and Partnership Comm |
Sep W2 & 3 | Sales period | NEA |
Nov W3 | Sales Period | NEA |
Nov W5 | Sales Period | NEA |
Logistics:
·Textbook resale portal
· Garage sales booth
· Registration forms
· Central textbook deposition forms
· Posters
C. Plastic: Recycling Bin Project
Introduction:
The Recycling Bin Project is part of 14degrees efforts to reduce NUS High’s waste output of plastic. The school canteen sells bottled drinks that are popular among students. The used plastic bottles are noted to be often thrown into a rubbish bin instead of a recycling bin. This is may be due to having only 1 plastic recycling bin at only 1 end of the canteen.
The location of the recycling bins is determined by the recycling company, which is not convenient for students. 14degrees will reduce this waste of plastic by placing more plastic recycling bins at more strategic positions—thus allowing more people to recycle.
As plastic are non-biodegradable and takes up a large proportion of the waste stream, reducing the waste output of plastic would not only reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, lesser rubbish would also be going to the landfill and thus extend the ‘life’ of the landfill. Recycling plastic also saves energy: the energy saved from recycling just a single plastic bottle can light up a 60W bulb for 6 hours.
Program:
Making of Recycling Bins
The recycling bins will be handmade using cardboard boxes and lined with white trash bags. The boxes will be sealed completely, with only a small opening cut open on top of the boxes for deposition of the bottles. The bins will also have signs on them indicate that they are plastic recycling bins.
Deploying of recycling bins & Publicity
One recycling bin would be placed along the common classrooms corridors of every level of every block; One would be placed by the side of the plate collection point in the canteen; 3 would be placed along the routes from the canteen to the classrooms. Posters would be placed at the dustbins to remind people to use the plastic recycling bins.
Class NEAs are to inform their classes of the presence of such recycling bins and encourage their classmates to use it wisely.
Clearing of recycling bins
Action Plan and Timeline:
Week | Action | By: |
July W1 | Creation and deploying of recycling bins | Recycling bin project |
~2008~ | Regular clearing of recycling bins | Green Committee |
Logistics:
· 16 cardboard boxes
· 16 posters
· White trash bags
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