Project: Trash picking
- Arssema
- Jan 20, 2019
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 2, 2019
LO that will be reached throughout this project:
LO1 Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
LO2 Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
LO3 demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
LO4 Show commitment and perseverance in CAS experiences.
LO5 Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
LO6 Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance.
LO7 Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Experience:
- Trash picking
- Stafett for livet
What CAS did I gain from this?
Activity and Service since we walked around quite a lot and picked up trash.
What is my goal?
-My goal is to make Sandefjord and the environment around me more green and learn through that process how I can be more green myself.
Reflect -I have always been interested in helping out when it comes to plastic and garbage that could be a danger for our nature and have always wanted to do something about it. Therefore, when I heard that some of the students in my class had established a trash picking group, I became interested and joined the group. I myself have several times alone or with a friend gone and picked up trash either around my neighbourhood or at the beach, so when I heard that I could do it in a group where I can do it organised and frequently, I was super happy.
Then Silje (classmate) asked us if we wanted to take part in gathering garbage at the “Stafett for livet” which is a 24-hour event that was organised by “Kreftforeningen” to show support for the families that have lost or been affected in any way by cancer. I signed myself up and went down to Badeparken that Saturday. There we got vests and bags to collect the garbage. We were told that since we have the vests on, people may mistake us for the kreftforening and may share with us some information about their experiences with cancer and that those stories may be very hard for a person to listen to if not trained for it. I was prepared to welcome anyone that may want to share their story because I am an open person and wouldn’t mind giving minutes of my time to make someone feel better. We were also told that it if we didn’t want that kind of interaction, we could point them in the direction of one of the members of the kreftforening.
We picked trash for some hours and it surprised me how much of the smaller and dangerous things we found. Things that the birds would mistake for food and try to eat but will end up killing the poor animals. We found burner phones, plastic, snus, cigarettes, plastic cups, food wrap etc. and so much more that shouldn’t be on the ground in a park. What really pissed me off was when we came to the trashcan and there was so much trash AROUND the trash can. It angers me that ones people are at the trash, they will not even make an effort to put the trash in it. When I see things like this, I get reminded of all the horrible and sad videos, pictures, speeches and real-life situations I have seen when it comes to the consequences of what we don’t mind throwing in the ground. It reminds me of the swans right by the water in Sandefjord city who used to be dirty because of all the trash that was leaked in the water. It saddens me that what we are not careful with have to affect the poor animals that are just trying to survive. I will always remember this quote from a Facebook post from “A general consensus” where they posted pictures of the consequences of our trash and a quote saying: "It's just one straw, it's just one disposable cup, it's just one plastic bag" - 7.4 billion people. I reposted this in our group for inspiration and it can’t be found at: https://www.facebook.com/TheGeneralConsensus/posts/1873183846050539
We did a lot that day too aside from trash picking. We bonded both trough picking trash, discussing, watching a beautiful proposal, hugging the “Fuck Cancer” panda, watching beautiful shows that were organised and also at the end, when it got darker, we stood in the cold hugging each other and listing to songs, strong stories from people on stage and watched the beautiful lights that were lit by the families of the victims of cancer for the victims. I was the last person to go home and stayed till over 22 at night and watching the people that kept on running in the cold, at night, for their loved ones really warmed my heart. The shame that I felt for humanity while picking all the trash turned warmer watching all these people who have the heart to want to do something good. This was a beautiful and well spent day for this project.
Some videos from this day:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1eTancFPbstNOUaOsM-ckob9hh9IvbrY9
Trash picking Friday 1 (12.10.2018)
-We decided to walk for about 1 hour and pick trash around the school at our free period. We walked up towards Bugårdsdammen and around it. We found a lot of trash, three bags full, and a surprisingly big amount of plastic. I did not expect it to be this much trash in just one hour, but this showed me how dirty even the cleanest places are today. And this of course makes me even more worried for our future.
Trash picking Friday 2 (19.10.2018)
-We decided to go around the school and pick trash there since we already took Bugårdsdammen the other Friday. This time we decided to take with us a separate bag for plastic. We went around for about 45 minutes but the amount of trash we collected was still bigger than I expected. What really surprised me was that there was nearly the double amount of plastic than normal trash. This is really dangerous to the nature since it simply is not biodegradable and will stay in nature for hundreds of years giving it enough time to build up and hurt nature even more, which is scary to think about. We in Norway are lucky and have the deposit return machine that recycles the bottles and gives us money back (1-3 kr), but still, we choose to throw away the bottles everywhere else than there.
Trash picking Tuesday (05.11.2018)
I will let the amount of trash found under 1 hour round the school in the pictures speak for themselves. We ended up filling 3-4 WHOLE BAGS of just plastic, found a who bag with cans and bottles, an even bigger big of trash that was thrown, 1-2 bags with non plastic trash and even tree wheels. We didn’t even have enough bags, so we had to use the extra bags the we found lying around…
Trash picking Friday (16.11.2018)
Trash picking Monday (03.12.2018)
-The group had a meeting to plan out further plans now that the snow would make trash picking hard for us. Therefore we decided to set a pause on the trash-picking and do something for the environment meanwhile since our goal is to help better our environment. We shared ideas and have now decided to try and plan a cloth swapping event.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-3DKgiThvQKZGuleiHhPliwDPWGxnXrobsAn0r02hs8/edit?fbclid=IwAR37YGHHMC3xD19429_DYSRML4qVKyv8DCb0vjDwvWRm3R4mRaV1VimtN8Q (short summary of the meeting written by Hekla)
Wednesday meeting (29.01.19)
-In this meeting, we discussed the cloth swapping event that we had mentioned in the last meeting. Here, we divided ourselves into Promoting team and organising team and chose which one we wanted to be in. I chose the organising team. After that, we sat in our assigned groups and further discussed ideas and tried to choose a date that would be fitting for this event. Our goal is to make people throw less and rather swap it for something else that they want. We are also planning on maybe having a baking sale at the same time so people have something to eat if they wanted. I also suggested that if we have leftover clothes or other things, we could give it to charity.
Wednesday meeting (13.03.19)
-In this meeting, we discussed further on the swapping event. We talked about possible places we could have it in and everybody came with suggestions. Finding or suggesting possible locations was the purpose of this meeting and it went well.
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