Reuse Electronics - Phones for Migrant Workers

Although our school EWaste bins do a great job of being a central hub for electronic waste to be reused and recycled, unfortunately, a lot of people throw away phones into ewaste bins when they're still in working condition. 

Sadly, some of these items do get sent to the prcoessing facility and can't be donated, the bins are currently just too big for our student groups to frequently go through and test.

In the meantime, the service office has set up a donation box to collect old phones to be reused by migrant workers in Singapore. Not only is this a great system to give back to our community and redistrubte items to people who can beenfit from it, especially now taht everything is organised online. This project is also a great sustinability intiative in the way that it closes the gap on harmful effects of the capitalist mindset we have,  over buying and throwing away instead of reuseing what we have. It's more sustainable to use products until we can't anymore, than throwing them away and getting the newest iPhone every other year. 

Please donate your working electronic products instead of throwing them away, or even better, sell them on platforms such as carousel, depop or Facebook Marketplace. 

Singapore Ewaste as researched by The Straits Times 

Lost and Found Market Stall

On the 10th of December a college service, The Really Really Free Market, a group that organises second-hand sales, helped to return lost items to our students. 

We are trying to reduce the waste that the lost and found inevitably produces, this cycle of losing perfectly good clothes and buying new things is not sustainable and exhausts our resources and landfill space.  

With this idea, we focus on Sustainable Development Goal 12, responsible consumption and production, lets work together to minimise the fast fashion cycle, keep our water bottles and uniforms in our possession, instead of buying new! 

Clarifying the menu - Vegan Labels

 Over the past couple of weeks, Mr Hirons and Rhianna have been working with Cholan and Pranavi in the Facilities team, to clarify which items on our menu are vegan, and displaying that. This makes life for our vegetarian and vegan students a lot easier so that we can understand our menu and our meal's ingredients. 

The menu is available on the notices every week, and is posted in the pavilion canteen. The daily counter displays are also updated with the new vegan labels. Check it out! 

Composting On Campus

Composting is the action of allowing food and plant waste to breakdown into a soil-like mixture, that recycles the nutrients, unused by humans, back into our food cycle. 

Our compost on campus has gone under much improvement since its startup, with Grade 3’s, 5’s, Green Campus and gardening groups on campus all contributing to the composting process, we should have a great deal of soil aid to feed our plants.

Grade 3’s have been collecting pod compost, food waste from various snack times and lunchtimes. Grade 5s are on a router of classes who compost during their lunchtimes, collecting orange peels, coffee groups and cafeteria scraps. The incredible edible team top up and turn the pile twice a week to encourage the breakdown process, mixing nitrogen and carbon-heavy material together. So that when it’s ready, they use it for their plants around the school! 

After the December break, the Grade 6s will be on a router to help out with a new program, Home Compost, to get staff involved in bringing their scraps from home, furthering the work we are doing to reduce the volume of waste burnt in Singapore.

What do we put in it? 

First of all we have to have our Nitrogen heavy materials, which are usually fresh and flexible plant waste, that help to provide and retain moisture. Material like grass clippings, fruit and vegetable scraps and weeds are great examples, and products we put in our compost at school. Next we need carbon heavy materials, which are older, harder, dry waste. They tend to be bulky that helps with the airflow for the breakdown process. Examples of this are fallen leaves, cardboard, tea bags and shredded paper. 

How does it work?

In composting, controlling the components is vital to ensure the chemical process of aerobic biodegradation happens. We do this by providing a good ratio of oxygen to water in the pile so that it breaks down properly. The decomposing microbes need oxygen for the chemical process breakdown, whilst the water feeds the microbes and maintains the temperature of the pile! Ideal compost is dark and crumbly. 

Why do we need to break down food scraps and organic matter? 

Plants have so many nutrients that can be used, that's why humans eat them, however, plants can use these nutrients in this full form. A chemical process has to occur to break down the complex compounds into a form a plant can take in. Within the chemical process inside a compost pile, proteins break down into amino acids which break into ions that are water soluble, great for plants! 

Why is organic compost better than store bought? 

Organic compost releases nitrogen at a slow but sustainable rate whilst synthetic fertilizers provide immediately available nitrogen, that is unsustainable for growth, leading to tall and thin plants, prone to weather damage. 

Is Composting Worth it?

Yes! It saves money and is a more sustainable fertilizer for your plants! Additionally, by diverting the food waste into your compost, you reduce the amount of landfill pilling up, (20% of it is food waste!)

Composting is an easy, cost effective process that everyone can benefit from, if not for plants in your own house, for those in your community! 

Three new groups learning tree nursery skills

With Local Service suspended due to COVID-19, we have even more students than usual milling about in our tree nursery. A Middle school group works with Mr Meehan on Wednesday; a Grade 9-10 group with Mr Daniels and Ms Haley on Thursday; and a Grade 11-12 group with Mr Tomlin on Friday. Meanwhile, a URRP GC group also meets at lunchtime on Thursday, literally getting their hands dirty. As if that weren't enough, a Magic Mulch group meets on Thursday afternoon, taking invaluable compost to trees around the campus that started life in the nursery. The new URRP groups are following a basic tree nursery course that introduces them to the theory and practice of how to:

1. germinate seeds
2. 'pot up' seedlings
3. grow new trees (clones) from cuttings
4. grow new trees by means of air layering ('marcottage')
5. plant a tree

It's an exciting time — especially with NParks keen to involve us in their One Million Trees movement — and we look forward to a new batch of students coming through the nursery in Season 2 (Nov-Jan). The late Nobel Peace Prize winner Waangari Maathai once said, “Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking.” Keep digging!

Collaboration with NParks: One Million Trees

We are delighted to be part of a collaboration with NParks, supporting the One Million Trees movement. This is a nationwide effort to plant a million trees over the next 10 years and we hope that thousands of those trees will be raised in our new GreenHeart nursery. 

UWCSEA Rainforest Restoration Project (URRP) staff met with NParks staff on 24 September. We have already received seeds from NParks and plans are afoot to plant URRP-raised saplings in parts of the Southern Ridges, such as Kent Ridge Park and the Rail Corridor. URRP staff will also visit theNParks nursery at Pasir Panjang during the October half-term break.

Alexandra Park tree planting

As a slightly belated celebration of International Day of Forests (21 March), a small group of URRP staff and students planted ten trees at the Alexandra Park estate on 25 March. A pair of white-collared kingfishers flashed aquamarine between the existing trees and called out raucously as we worked.

Ms Edwards and Ms Henry
barely breaking a sweat.

All of the trees were raised in our Dover nursery and all but one (Broad-leafed Mahogany) was an indigenous species. The full list comprised:

• Barringtonia asiatica (Fishkiller)
• Cynometra cauliflora (Nam Nam)
• Hopea bracteata (Merawan Ungu)
• Hopea ferrea (Ceylon Ironwood)
• Litsea elliptica 
• Mimusops elengi (Tanjung, Spanish Cherry)
• Moringa oleifera (Horse-radish tree)
• Shorea materialis 
• Sterculia foetida (Hazel Sterculia, Java Olive)
• Swietenia macrophylla (Broad-leaved Mahogany)

Ríona helped plant five trees.

The Sterculia tree has an interesting etymology: Sterculius was the Roman god of cow dung and "foetida" means stinking! The name refers to the fact that all parts of the tree exude an unpleasant smell while it is flowering.

Mea has planted many trees
in the past 2 years.

A couple of the trees have edible leaves. The young leaves of Litsea elliptica are used as a vegetable side dish or as a flavouring in the spicy Thai sauce, Nam Prik. Meanwhile, Moringa has been hailed as a 'superfood' for its nutritional benefits and multiple culinary uses. The immature green pods are often used in curries. The seeds inside mature pods can be eaten like peas. Even the flowers are edible when cooked. The highly nutritious leaves are cooked and used like spinach. (Walk down Buffalo Road near Little India MRT and you'll see heaps of Moringa leaves on the table outside a vegetable shop.)

Mr Daniels shows the strain of bodybuilding with Moringa.

Neat Nursery

In recent weeks, Andy Tan and his landscaping team, together with Facilities staff and outside contractors, have done an impressive job of reorganising the Dover nursery. Rotting wood and broken pots have been disposed of, replaced by lightweight metal tables with mesh tops and relaid artificial turf. Even our Shade House has had a makeover.

The Rainforest Restoration Project should soon be moving its base to the space near the new Ecology Centre. As we do so, we should dispose of our much-loved but dilapidated cupboards. As ever, we should ensure all our species are labelled and bring our inventory up to date. A next step may be to seek new stock from NParks while also using cuttings to propagate some indigenous species.

COVID-19 has interrupted our meetings with NParks partners, but we are exploring the possibility of being assigned a section of the Rail Corridor for reforestation, from seedling collection, through nursery care, planting and subsequent monitoring of tree growth.

Towards Zero Waste? No more tetrapacks

Towards Zero Waste?

Since the discontinuation of disposable cups in August 2018, the number of Tetrapaks purchased had doubled to about 4000 per week. Although about half of the cartons were being recycled, this resulted in a huge increase in waste. The students from Green Campus were also becoming overwhelmed by the volume of cartons for recycling.

                                                              Part of one week's collection of cartons

From August 2019, the sales of Tetrapak drink cartons has been discontinued. This will avoid about 140 000 drink cartons being consumed. Instead, students now purchase a cup and serve themselves from dispensers. This has led to a new problem: lost cups.

Over 1200 cups have been lost since the start of the year. Many are left around campus instead of being brought back to the proper return areas. Most of these are recovered, however it takes considerable effort from the Sodexo staff to do this. Others likely end up in the garbage bins or are in unconventional places around campus. A cup was found at the end of the driveway on Dover road, so perhaps some are taken off of campus.

Sadly, the losses of cups greatly reduces the overall impact of having removed the drink cartons from the canteen. We need to work as a community towards educating all with regard to the need to bring back the cups, realising that the perceived inconvenience of returning the cups is affecting our environmental footprint.

                                                       A disappointing display of unreturned items

Sodexo Project

Since October, LEAF GC has been working with Sodexo to improve the vegetarian and plant-based options available in the canteen. The goal is to reduce the community's overall meat consumption by making the non-meat dishes more appealing.

The ability to participate in feedback surveys was advertised to staff and students through the Notices and Teamie posts. A collection of 108 staff and student email addresses was obtained. Here is the profile of those who are participating:

Members of the community who would still like to join this group can do so by following this link.

Meeting #1

Here is information that we learned from our first meeting

-a new symbol (a leaf) will be used on the electronic screens to indicate plant-based dishes so that they are easier to identify. 

-Plant-based offerings will hopefully also be indicated on the online published menu

-Sodexo has been working to enhance the plant-based offerings. A supplier has recently been providing vegan cheese and quorn nuggets. It is possible that due to supply issues they may not always be available.

-sales at Planted are increasing. From 20 servings a day at the start of the year to over 60 now. Sales at Planted are much higher when the side dish is onion rings or sweet potato fries

-it is difficult for Sodexo to avoid cross contamination in the serving of some dishes. For example, the grill at the Mexican stall is used for all food and so the plant-based servings may come in contact with meat or dairy products. There is a similar issue with the salad mixing bowls.

-Sodexo would appreciate a survey being done to gather information about the proportion of the community that is looking to eat vegetarian/vegan

-pesto is served daily and is vegan and nut-free, made with basil grown on campus

THE UPCYCLERS

Students in Grades 3 and 4 have been having a great time turning trash into treasure 

in the new Upcyclers ECA this year! 

The Upcyclers

Using only recycled materials, such as old food cans, atlases and dictionaries, 

they have been busy making useful gifts for the school community:

Making a pencil pot from a food can.

Making handy stationery boxes.

Making classroom display banners.

Making useful notebooks from old atlas paper.

      

"I like being in Upcyclers because we get to do lots of crafts and reuse things so it's good for the environment." Savya, Grade 3.

It's great to see our students learn to reuse and upcycle waste items, thanks to Mrs Ferreira and Mrs Brogden for organising such an inspirational activity! 

   

K2: IS IT REALLY RUBBISH?

K2 students investigate rubbish in their latest unit.

Students in K2 have been finding out what happens to the rubbish they put in the bin and asking themselves if it really is rubbish. 

 

In their Unit of Study they have been busy picking up litter and sorting different types of rubbish for recycling. Miss Willis came to speak to the K2 classes and reminded them about the 4 Rs:

She explained what happens to our waste in Singapore and talked about how the recycling centres work. 

 

One student was so motivated that he reorganised his family recycling bags at home! Well done, Freddie! 

It's great to see such responsible attitudes in caring for our environment in some of our youngest students. Keep up the good work!