Sustainability Committee

 The G5-12 Sustainability Committee is starting to use this site to share information. Further information coming soon...

The battle against the lost cups

 Ever since we made the right decision to get rid of single-use plastic in our canteens, replacing them with reusable plastics, we've made a huge dent in how much waste we were producing. Although, now, we have a new problem. In 6 weeks in 2020, 800 cups were lost. Strewn around campus on tables, playgrounds, cupboard, fire extinguishers and worse, in bins! Facilities changed their clean up procedure to have employees scouring the campus for cups to use so that they don't run out, but ultimately losing money buying new cups. 

We ask ourselves the question, with all these hard plastics going missing and to waste, is this really more sustainable? 

What has been done 

 - More collection stations 

 - Posters 

 - Stickers on the black bins 

 - Display board in the tent 

 - Do the Right Thing Campaign 

Student Council Accountability week coming up in May 

 - Reminding students 

 - Proposed Accountability Week of no facilities collection 

 - Re education video 

Will this make a difference? Well, it's quite hard to measure without doing an inventory count but we are definitely enthusiastic for accountability week doing a difference. It seems to be a matter of trial and error until we get it right. However, it might be time to change the angle from sustainability and waste, to a student cultural behaviour. 

Track Our Trees - Reflecting on the past two season

This year a problem was identified by our service a sustainability team, that in our eager work to offer tree donations to community members, we have lost track of what trees are where. Therefore a service was offered to our high school's students, to investigate the campuses donated, and planted trees. They collected data, in order to report back to the foundations and gardening team, what is where and what needs attending to. As the season and big job comes to an end, the students have reflected on the importance of this organisation, and their role in this service. 

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"I learned the major differences between papaya trees, mango trees and banana trees. Most of the sessions were very efficient as the entire group split up into different pairs and each pair was assigned to a designated area. I think one of the biggest challenges we've encountered in this service was to identify the species of the tree and match it with the numbering system on the spreadsheet. Overall, I really enjoyed the service and the members, it was a great opportunity for me to get to know the flora population on the campus. - Sean Fang

"Track our Trees has been a very enjoyable service to be a part of through the first 2 seasons of the academic year. With sustainability being one of UWC's key underlying principles, I've learned a lot about the maintenance of our natural environment, and the general conditions necessary to promote the growth of vegetation in Singapore. I particularly enjoyed the tabulation of data within the common spreadsheet, as it gave a great sense of satisfaction to see the accumulation of all our work throughout the weeks and months. One of the struggles we sometimes had was paying attention to detail with some trees in our spreadsheet, and this involved revisiting zones multiple times. However, with determination and a good attitude we were able to complete our assigned tasks ahead of the deadlines set." - Siddarth Sridhar

"Doing this service, I have acquired a plethora of useful skills that are applicable to a multitude of scenarios I am to encounter later on. Perhaps the most important skill in improving was my skill in using spreadsheet software; in this instance, Google Sheets. I also greatly improved my knowledge of various species of Flora previously unknown to me." - Aidan Loughnan

"At the start of the season, it would take a few sessions to record data in a tree section. However, now we are able to cover a section in 1 session. Our speed and efficiency has progressively grown across the season and I feel more confident in identifying trees and recording data surrounding its health or structure." - Luka Matic

 

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.