Our exploration learned about refuse plastic. We learned about refuse plastic because we see in Phnom Penh that there is a lot of plastic bags. Plastic is everywhere around Phnom Penh. So we want to reuse the plastic waste.
See this presentation to find out what we had done!
In the first week we started to talk about the plastic. We talked about the things we know about plastic, what we want to know and what an idea or wonder is that we have. When we talked about this already, one person volunteered to write down a note.
When we do that already Max told us to do an experiment about the waste that we make in one week. He gave us one plastic bag. We shared our ideas, our thinking about how much we making waste in one day or one week. So after one week we shared all the rubbish and collected it together.
My understanding is that all the rubbish can be reused, reduced, and recycled. My challenge was that I forgot to take the rubbish bag with me all the time and sometimes I forgot about putting the rubbish in my rubbish bag. This assignment changed my behavior because I can remember that if somewhere there is not a rubbish bin I can put it in my pocket or in my rubbish bag. It surprised me that I can know how much rubbish I make in one day because all the time if I have rubbish I always just throw it in the rubbish bin. But it was less than the rubbish that I thought it would be. The rubbish that is necessary is 30% and the rubbish that I don’t need is 70%. Now I know that I need to change my behavior in the future. That means I do not forget about the things I need.
We also learned about the problem when burn, bury, throw away and landfill. The problem of burning the plastic is, it can make Co2. When Co2 goes to the atmosphere it can increase the climate change. It can make the greenhouse effect if we burn a lot of plastic. When the Greenhouse effect happens we can not get a lot of energy from the sun. The Sun gives us 100% of energy; we just get 70% of the energy and 30% bounces out to the universe. Another problem is when we burn the plastic it makes toxic gas. Toxic gas is very bad for us. It can make us headache, or heart problem, cancer, weakness, and mutation. Mutation means that you will get two heads or three arms like that. Bio accumulation is the problem too. It changes people’s hormones. When we burn the plastic it changes people’s hormones because it can make you fat or change our body. The problem of bury is polluting water and bad for soil. Plastic has chemicals. When we bury it the chemicals go into the soil so the plants can not grow on that soil.
The problem of landfill is it use a lot of space and is expensive to do. When we put the rubbish in the landfill it can kill the animals because animals come to eat that plastic. The rubbish in the landfill will make methane gas because the organic waste does not decompose. Methane gas is the gas that is 21 times more dangerous than Co2.
The problem of throwing the rubbish away is it will clog the drain. It means when the plastic is in the drain the water can’t go through so it will became flooded. Also it is related to the tourism because when tourists come they see a lot of plastic and they think that Cambodia is not the good place because it has lots of plastic at the road and everywhere. Sometimes it is dangerous for the people because when the people use transportation by motor or car, the wind will blow the plastic to their face so they can’t see anything. When we throw the rubbish it will make the mosquitoes because mosquitoes like to live in the dark place and have the water. We all were understanding the problem so we started to do more research about it.
This is the prezi I made for the effect of burn, bury, throw, incinerator and landfill.
Trip
Now let me talk about our trip. On Friday, 16th June 2014, my refuse plastic team went on a trip. On the trip we went to BKK (Boeung Keng Kong) market, City mall market and Cintri. We went there because we wanted to interview, survey, and do observing. We prepared our questions on Thursday to help us do that work. When we arrived there we split into teams.We interviewed and surveyed the sellers and the buyers. They talked about the plastic. They said sometimes plastic is good for us to carry thing like clothes, shoes, plates…. . But sometimes it is not good for our health because plastic has chemicals and when we put the hot things like porridge it can make the plastic get thin so it is easy to tear. When I went there I felt happy but sometimes I felt scared because I didn’t know the people that I asked. My highlight is that I could interview the people and know more ideas from them. When we finished we went to Olympic Stadium at 12:00pm to eat lunch. We ate breads and cookies. When we finished eating we met together and did some reflection. At 01:35pm we went to Cintri to ask questions about plastic. We arrived there at 2:05pm. The staff at there took us to the conference room. When we met one man he introduced himself. Later one man came and told us about the plastic and about their company. Cintri is the company that goes to collect the rubbish outside in the city. Cintri’s challenge is that when they go to collect the rubbish the people don’t organize their rubbish so it is hard for them to collect. Another thing is that when they go to collect the rubbish it is hard for them to push the trash when there is sand on the road. Sometimes when the people have a celebration or party they just throw the rubbish away. It also showed about people’s behavior that they don’t respect the rules, they just follow other people. If one person puts the rubbish not organize then other people will do that too. But now Cintri tries to make rubbish bins for putting the rubbish and tells the people to have good behavior. People can change their behavior by respecting the rules and helping change Cambodia by not throwing the rubbish away.
This is the prezi I made for our trips.
In class
In class we interviewed the people about the plastic. They came to our school and taught about the plastic to us. One man tried to make the community people understand about plastic. Another man talked about the plastic too. He tried to make us know more and we asked questions to him.
Next we started to learn about solutions about plastic waste. Our solution was reduce, reuse and recycle. But next lesson we learned about 5D. Next we did research and to solve that problem. Now we started to make things. Next we started to develop and tried to deploy. It means we need to reduce the plastic. We need to use less plastic. You can buy the reusable bags for putting things when you go to the market. When we have a lot of plastics we need to reuse them by making some things like bags and flowers. When you reuse the plastics it is better than you taking the plastics to throw away. You can recycle the plastic if you can’t use it again by bringing it into the factory. It is a very good thing that you need to reduce before reuse, do reuse before recycle and do recycle before throwing it away.
After we learned about reduce, reuse and recycle we started to do a survey in the Liger community. When we went there we divided in four groups. When we surveyed, a lot of people said they burned the plastic or threw away. The organic waste they will not compost. People just threw away that waste to everywhere. They didn’t know when they threw the rubbish it would affect the environment. But in the community people like to use the reusable bags when they go to the market.
When we came back we started to reuse the the plastic. So we started to make something new from the plastic like bags. I wanted to do this because I want to help and reuse plastic because Cambodian people now are using a lot of plastic and don’t care about the environment in the future. When I do this I can put my money or my pencil in it. People want it because I made a design and the importance of my ideas are that it was made from plastic. So I can reuse plastic and help the environment to be good.
How to make a bag from recycle plastic!
If you want to make a bag you need to have plastic, scissors, needle, thread, iron and some of the pictures on the plastic. The first step is we take the plastic and then cut the bottom and the handle of the plastic out. After you cut already you can take it to iron. You can make your bag five to six layers. If you have the big plastic you can iron and iron it again for six layers because we want it to be strong. When you iron you need to be careful because the iron is so hot. Also if you want your bag to look really nice you need to make the plastic smooth when you iron. Next is you bend it for three layers. It means you can bend any style. For me I bend the long one to the top and then I make the space for their lips. When you bend already you take the needle to sew the two sides of the bag. You can sew any style. When you sew already you can cut the pictures from the plastic to put on the plastic to look nice. To do that you can take the picture and then put it on your plastic so you iron it with plastic because when you iron, the picture will stick on your bag. If you want to make the button, you put that button and sew it on the lip of bag. When you did that finished you can take the scissors to cut the two slits at the front side of the bag. So you can take the string to tie it with the two slits like the circle and then you can connect it with the button. So you can have a nice bag for putting your things.
When we did that already we sat and talked about our reflections to friends about doing this project. I appreciated to everyone in my refuse plastic class that they worked hard and tried to wait for the iron.
After that me and my two friends started to work on the presentation to share to all Liger students and the staff in Liger school. When we did the presentation we felt like scared because we didn’t learn so much about the plastic and also other presentations they learned already so it is hard for me. But it is okay I was very happy to share my ideas to other people and show that Liger is the good school to teach the lesson.
If you want to look at some other of my friend’s projects you can go to:
http://refuseplastic.ligercambodiablog.org/