Eco-Office

Project Name : Eco - Office

Project Leader(s): Andy Wu, Pema Ghale, Karishma Surtani, Hannah Leonczek & Mehek Gidwani

Eco-Office Team here,

Ever dream of working in an environmentally sustainable office where all your hard work results in low carbon foot-print? Where you can enjoy a much greener and healthier work environment?

That's what we strive to do as eco-officers! This team have audited the general office, maths and science departments and come up with recommendations for their approach to a greener and more sustainable working environment as well as commending them on their excellent efforts so far. Our next main goal is to tackle the ESF Headquarters where all the big bosses are. The issue at hand is their new relocation and apparently they will not be taking their existing furniture, which means that it will all go to waste? We sure hope not.

Till' next time,
Eco-Officer - Andy Wu 12E

MR Bottle Campaign

43 million plastic bottles are thrown away every year and it takes seven liters of water to produce one plastic bottle! Each individual is estimated to throw about 160 million tons of rubbish every year, that’s enough to fill the whole of Shatin College and the Junior School! So think about it, why individuals like you and me are letting earth down when we could be desperately trying to save it. It doesn’t affect you now, but peeps listen up, all this recycling humble jumble will get to you weather you like it or not.

So are you sick and tired of living in a rubbish dump? Are you ready to take action because WE are! Introducing the MR Bottle Campaign and his team of bottles! We are ready to give Shatin College a complete makeover. Lets stop being plastic about plastic bottles and start being real. So far, we have accomplished:

1) drama skit around lower years- explaining the our cause
2) placed white plastic recycling boxes around school for YOU to use
3) Empty the bins, washing, sorting out and ultimately placing them into the huge green bins for the big guys to come and take away
4) Advertised through laminated sheets of recycled paper about the recycling Programme. Each level has a poster based on its subject

And it doesn’t end there, we are going to take this further until everyone one in SHATIN COLLEGE starts rethinking about using a plastic bottle and starts brining their own reusable bottle. Do we really need a new bottle every day? Save that extra $5 and purchase your very own water bottle NOW! Think about it, that extra $5 can buy you a delicious chocolate chip cookie or even better save it up for your future!

Join our campaign to make a change, lets stop being plastic and start being REAL!

Genghis Can: Yes He Can!

Hello, various denizens of Shatin College and other readers - it is I, Genghis Can of the West. As you can tell, I'm no longer in the business of conquering the russian steppes and hanging out with my warrior horde, but since I've retired, I've been dedicating myself to more worthwhile causes. There's more to life than world domination.

One thing I'd like to call your attention to is the way we use natural resources in the world today. Don't get me wrong, I love the amenities of modern life as much as you do, and I'm not about to tell you to go and live in a portable ger (a traditional Mongolian tent) in the plains of Mongolia. It's just that we have to find smarter ways to live comfortably, because at the rate we're consuming the world's resources, none of us will be able to use the things we take for granted every day.

Computers, an efficient transportation system, air conditioned homes, good tasting food. All gone.

Probably not within the next fifty years or so, maybe not even within the next hundred years, but it's definitely happening. Our world cannot support the amount of natural resources we're consuming at the moment - and bear with me for a minute, because I'm not telling you to become a technological Luddite and live in a cave.

I'm simply saying that we have to live more efficiently. Find more efficient forms of power. Find better ways of reusing "junk", because at the moment we're throwing tonnes of perfectly good electronics into the rubbish, all because they're "outdated". There are plenty of little things we can all do with our comfortable lives to make sure we aren't flushing the world's collective future down the toilet drain.

I'm admittedly a pretty violent warlord who once subjugated the entire world with my horde of mighty warriors, but even I think it's slightly unclassy for a guy, to be hurting future generations all because he was too lazy to change his lifestyle so it'd be a little less damaging to the world around him.

Okay, now that I've shown you the person you shouldn't be, I'm going to point out something positive a few people have been doing.

Can-Action. A lame name, a not so lame cause. These guys make sure that all of the aluminium we use, gets recycled. One moment, I have to address something I've heard a lot as Kublai Can.

"Recycling aluminium is useless, because it takes more energy to recycle it than it does to mine it!"

Comments like this make me want to go on a world-conquering spree all over again, despite my retirement. Look, use your common sense.

In order to mine aluminium in its raw form, bauxite, you need to -

• Strip acres of forest to prepare for mining - this includes places in South America, Australia, you get the idea.

• Devastate the area with military-grade explosives to bring the raw aluminium to the surface. "Is it harmful to animal life in the area?" - uh, go figure.

• Refine the raw bauxite - you need large amounts of energy to heat up the aluminium with caustic soda in order to refine it, and even then you only get alumina. More raw, unusable aluminium!

• Finally, with the alumina, you have to heat it until it becomes molten, and then perform electrolysis to bring out the pure aluminium.

If you recycle aluminium, you simply melt it down and use it again.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that recycling is the way forward, at least in this case. Wiki it, if you don't believe me.

So here's what Can-Action's been up to, at least recently.

Can-munist Recycling Bin Distribution Campaign

Can-Action figured that part of the reason people never put their cans in the recycling bins, was because they were too far away. People didn't want to get up and walk to the recycling bins, when they could just toss their cans into the nearest rubbish bin instead. So Can-Action reasoned,

"If the people will not bring their cans to the recycling bins, we will bring the recycling bins to the people."

And so Can-Action did.

Propa-canda Campaign

Even with the recycling bins placed everywhere, even next to normal rubbish bins, people still threw their cans inside the rubbish bins. What's worse, I myself saw one student throw a can into the rubbish bin and his lunch into the recycling bin. The Can-Action group's been trying to knock some sense into people like that, because if they don't change their actions now, they'll be damaging the environment for the rest of their adult lives.

The Can-Tube Project

Their semi-secret project (not so secret now that I'm posting it on this blog), Can-Action is trying to put the fun in recycling. As fun as it can be, in any case. Because it's important to educate the lower years about living responsibly as much as we can, Can-Action is building a transparent pipe from the upper floors of the school building, designed to carry any cans that need recycling from anywhere in the school, to the bottom floor. They promise that it'll look awesome.

And on that note, I must be off. Live thoughtfully with regards to everybody else living on this planet, and please, please don't live like an irresponsible dou..

We've got enough in the world as it is.

Your faithful warlord,
Genghis Can

The EAG Newsletter

The EAG Newsletter

Project Name: The EAG Newsletter

People responsible: Nicholle Leung (12I) and

Ryan Chang (12D)

E-mail Address: nicholleleungx@gmail.com and

ryancheung6@gmail.com

Brief description: This project is to create a newsletter for the school; to promote we can be more environmentally friendly, raise awareness of certain issues and notifying readers about the EAG related projects within the school. A newsletter comes out every so often and discuses both worldwide and school issues. The research and write up is done by Nicholle Leung and Ryan Chang, it is revised and edited by Mr Hooper and Ms Paul, who have kindly agreed to help us. There have currently been three issues released with a soon to be released, fourth.

P.R. Group

Hi there fellow Shatin College-ers! This is Remus representing the not so well known EAG group known as 'P.R'. No, this simple acronym does not mean 'Pouring Rubbish' but a more environmentally concerned issue: "Paper Recycling". First off, I would like to apologize if you haven't seen out presence around school, irresponsible is something you could describe us as. However! We do have perfectly valid reasons for such delay and i'd like to share it to all you readers.

Currently, the PR group is spending a hard wrecking time in discovering a more efficient, cheap and fashionable-looking rubbish bin. Yes...yes....Laugh it all off in your seats as you read this when you think "How hard can that be? Just pop on to IKEA, you idiots!" Well my dear reader, guess what? That is exactly what we have been doing for a long time but many 'conflicts' have been occurring during our locating session. This is exactly what happened:

As a dedicated group of environmentalists, the three members of PR have ventured onto a mission to infiltrate IKEA headquarters and retrieve the catalog and an image of the 'perfect' paper bin for school. Infiltration was easy for the skills that we possessed, it was only a matter of walking up the escalators. But finding this 'perfect' bin and taking a photo of it was much of a pain. Walking along the narrow aisles of the plastic bin section, we came across many interesting looking designs yet none so efficient as needed and therefore a long 30 minutes was used to uncover the bin we needed. Then finally, a sigh of relief, after long debate and violent arguments, we found the perfect bin. A long tall shaped bin, big enough to fit any A4 paper or bigger and matched with an unbeatable price of $75, a moment of awe, there it was. Our eyes glimmered in admiration for its state of perfection and just as we were about to raise our camera to take a snapshot of this beautiful looking bin (for referencing purposes), and JUST about to click the 'capture' button, a obese looking security guard held the wrist of my very hand.

"Wai! Sai lo! Mm jun ying sheung gah! Chuut hui!"

Translated to readable English for those non-Chinese readers:

"OI! KID! YOU CANT TAKE PHOTOS! GET OUT!"

Being labeled as a 'small child' was humiliating enough, then to be awkwardly asked out of this department store, confidence was burned away. So that sums it, an obese guard just had to ruin the moment that could make this school so much cleaner and better. Disappointing i know, all environmentally concerned students, i feel the support and pat on the back, thanks. And so, we will make our moves noticeable very soon, action shall take place!

THE BINS SHALL BE OURS TO HAVE, JUST YOU WAIT!

For now, I'd say thanks for reading and wait for our next move. Please keep using the paper bins that are temporarily in use on all floors and most rooms of the school (the half white and transparent box shaped bin with 'paper recycling' on it) even if they are not as 'beautiful' as the ones we are about to bring in. Keep on recycling fellow SC-ers!

From,

PR Group

White House Garden

Project Name: White House Garden

Leader(s)Name:

Augustine Kwong, Moses Ip, Ellen Tsang, Sally Campbell, Jaqueline Tsang

E-mail Address:

crazymonkeyex@hotmail.com

Updater(s)Name:

Augustine Kwong 12D

This project aims to renovate the garden area near the white house. Initially the area was not put to good use, where only a few trees and a few plants existed and the soil were dried up and nothing new could have been grown. Our renovation is in three phases.

1) lossen up the soil and add new soil
2) Designing a new garden and selection of new plants
3) Implementing the new garden

Phase is now complete, with the help of yr7's, 8's and 12's. We are now in the middle of phase 2, also in this phase, we have initiated a 'Sponser a Tree' campaign. Where groups of people can gather together to sponser the costs of a tree.