Green Reps Planting Sustainability Seeds
From the activity briefing that launched the Promotion Period, through preparation, and finally to the dismantling and recycling of booths and decorations, Green Reps have taken an important role to organize the activities in a sustainable manner. In addition to reducing material use significantly, this year we recycled around 1,000 kg of cardboard and 50kg of plastics.
The mission of the Green Society Promotion Awards is to reward student societies who demonstrated outstanding green actions during the promotion period. Participating societies were required to submit a checklist and conduct interviews with representatives from the Sustainability Unit. Among 25 participants who signed up, three clubs excelled and won the green awards; IRESS , EVSS and Yo-Hoo Club.
Overall Champion
International Research Enrichment Students' Society ($1,800 Cash Prize)
Green Awards
- Environment Students' Society (category of Departmental Society $800 Cash Prize)
- Yo-Hoo Club (category of Independent Club $800 Cash Prize)
The International Research Enrichment Students' Society built a big bird decoration only with rubber bands and carton boxes without applying extra paint or art paper. They avoided using plastic tapes that made dismantling and recycling work much easier and more efficient. Most impressively, these design features resulted in zero waste going to landfill. They also donated the “current stick game” to a local school after event. They have demonstrated commitment and great effort to make their activity more sustainable.
As winners in the Departmental society and Independent club categories, both Yo-hoo and EVSS used recyclable and reusable materials to decorate their counters. They estimated the distribution quantity of leaflets to make sure that no wastes were generated and cabinet members shared the same design of name cards.
Instead of buying or making new games, Yo-hoo Club creatively designed toy guns with old newspaper as a counter game, distributed second-hand hiking stick items as souvenirs and created a bamboo swing at the counter with materials used in past years. In particular, Yo-Hoo Club promoted the principle of “Leave no trace” to their members during the ProP Period. The Leave No Trace Seven Principles is a set of guidance for nature-lovers to enjoy natural world in a sustainable way that avoids human-created impacts, emphasizing disposal of waste properly.
Environment Students' Society also decorated their booth beautifully with hanging butterflies made of newspaper and fall leaves on banner which looked fabulous with a touch of nature. They also held a resource recycling week activity to engage other student society’s members to join their green actions.
During the promotion period, the Sustainability Unit worked with over 30 student helpers to assist societies to recycle their counter material, to dismantle and separate their big decorations into categories of plastic, paper, cardboards, metal and souvenir for donation. By completing the recycling, societies can receive the refund of cleaning and recycling deposit from SU. This activity successfully raised the students’ awareness about the importance of reducing material use throughout the whole lifecycle, from design to dismantling.
Winner of Green Award IRE
The International Research Enrichment Students' Society built a big bird decoration only with rubber bands and carton boxes without applying extra paint or art paper
Yo-hoo Club
Yo-hoo Club creatively designed toy guns with old newspaper as a counter game,
Environment Students' Society also decorated their booth beautifully with hanging butterflies made of newspaper and fall leaves on banner which looked fabulous with a touch of nature.
