Green Week 2016

Hot on the heels of ‘Earth Hour’ which took place this year on Saturday 19th March, Green Week took place on the last week before the Easter holidays. Green Week is an annual event which raises awareness for environmental issues, promotes an eco-friendly way of living, and allows students to understand what they can do to be more environmentally minded. March 22nd to 24th saw a week of events lined up to engage students to participate in activities designed to spread awareness.

Green Week operates under a different theme every year. This time around, the theme was ‘Waste Reduction’. As the world moves towards its urban future, the amount of waste we produce rapidly increases and reducing and recycling waste becomes crucial. Hong Kong has an imminent waste problem, which needs to be addressed before it becomes a more serious issue. In Sha Tin College, the Environmental Council has been committed to reducing waste within the community and already has plans to tackle this matter.

“One of our goals is to realistically reduce our waste in compliance to the guidelines set by the ESF environmental forum,” said Bianca Cheung, chair of Sha Tin College’s Environmental Council. “Currently, we are focusing on energy waste and our first plan of action is to propose an energy reducing act within ESF.”

One of the events held during the week was the inter-house plastic bottle bowling competition. This was held in the undercover area during second break on the 22nd of March. Participants were selected by their student leaders to compete in ten frames of high difficulty bowling before a crowd of excited student spectators.

A student sets up the inter-house plastic bottle bowling activity. Photo: Chloe Wong

Another event was the recyclable materials stool-making competition which took place on the 24th March in the Library and Learning Centre, the purpose being to indicate to students that recycling is about reusing and re-purposing, and that finding different uses for materials would help us to reduce waste. The student leaders were given the challenge to make a visually appealing, safe, and sustainable stool out of 100% recyclable materials. The competition was judged by Mr. Morris, Ms. Hansen, Ms. Brooks, and Mr. Chiu.

“Amazing construction – it was so much more durable than they thought they’d be,” said Ms. Brooks. “It was really interesting to see how they incorporated their house designs in there as well.”

Thank you to the Environmental Council for organizing Green Week, and we hope that next year’s Green Week will be equally exciting and amazing!

Rachel Sung, 10X1