Each year the world generates over 2.01 billion tons of waste. Litter and waste clog our oceans, fill our streets and clutter huge areas of the planet. They cause great damage to our natural environment, wildlife, and people’s health and well-being. Since June 2022, students and teachers from ten UNESCO ASPnet schools from the Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, the Kingdom of Bahrain, Namibia and the Republic of Korea are participating in the Foundation for Environmental Education’s Litter Less Campaign and Young Reporters for the Environment Competition, engaging their peers and communities to eradicate litter and waste.
One of the initiatives started as a school project to raise awareness of e-waste and ended up becoming a campaign that caught the attention of the government. ASPnet teacher Huda Labib from the Ibn Khuldoon National School in the Kingdom of Bahrain explains: “Together with my students, we developed the Forgotten Fortune e-waste Campaign. We aim to raise awareness on the increasing issue of electronic waste and how much we could save if we were to produce and consume smarter and recycle our old electronics.” With the support of school leadership and other teachers, Huda engaged students in a range of applied learning experiences, including study visits to the recycling company authorized by the government to deal with this type of waste and the Bahraini Supreme Council for the Environment. But the students did not stop there: They launched a social media campaign and competitions to raise awareness among their classmates and the broader community. They managed to collect 1.3 tons of e-waste, which is now being recycled. They also built partnerships with stakeholders from the public and private sector, such as with Bahrain’s largest national telecommunications company to disseminate the e-waste campaign. And they have been discussing with the Minister of Oil and the Environment on policies that could help to reduce e-waste in their country. “It has been an amazing experience for my students, my peer teachers and myself. I am very proud of my students, who have shown extraordinary creativity and skillfulness in this Campaign,” explains Huda.
ASPnet students from the Ibn Khuldoon National School in the Kingdom of Bahrain investigating issues and solutions around e-waste for their “Forgotten Fortune” Campaign.
© Huda Labib
The issue of e-waste also prompted 12-year-old student Halah Noor to become an ardent voice for the environment: “Did you know that 60 - 90 % of the world’s e-waste is either illegally traded or discarded annually, causing the loss of materials worth nearly USD 19 billion? And did you know that e-waste produces 70% of society’s overall toxic waste? Most people don’t know what to do with their old electronics, so they end up lingering in a drawer or on a shelf for years on end.” Halah and other students are now working on establishing the “E-waste Recycling Initiative'' in collaboration with the Supreme Council for Environment and the national e-waste recycling company of Bahrain. For the Young Reporters for the Environment Competition, Halah wrote an article on the challenges and solutions to tackling e-waste that reached an audience way beyond her school community: “I am very proud that my article got published in our local newspaper, the Gulf News, and I hope many people in Bahrain read it and think twice about the implications when buying a new phone or other electronic item.”
““I am very proud that my article got published in our local newspaper, the Gulf News, and I hope many people in Bahrain read it and think twice about the implications when buying a new phone or other electronic item.””
The ASPnet school Ghazi Algosaibi has focused its attention on food waste. “We started with a small Campaign and now we are working with another 70 schools to curb food waste,” explains teacher Aisha Fareed. “We are also exchanging with the Ministry of Education to widen the Campaign to the whole country. Our long-term goal is to achieve inclusion of responsible food consumption in the Ministry of Education’s environmental curriculum by 2025.”
“Your wasted plate is a blessing to others”
Her 17-year-old students Jenan Jaffar, Lojain Jassim, Alaa Swaid and Zainab Jaffar developed a campaign image for the Young Reporters for the Environment competition “to showcase the root of the issue in our society that causes food waste. As shown in the picture, there is a mother in a Bahraini family who throws out excess leftovers which can’t be preserved or eaten later. […] The hands in the photo represent less fortunate people who do not have the same food accessibility as other families.” Aisha underlines that “This project comes at such an important moment following the COVID-19 pandemic. It motivates students to go outside and to actively collaborate again, especially on topics that no one necessarily thinks about but faces on a daily basis, like food waste.”
© Jenan Jaffar, Lojain Jassim, Alaa Swaid, Zainab Jaffar
In the Dominican Republic, Miguel Coradin, the Principal of the San José Obrero School and the students and teachers from his school focus on tackling plastic pollution: “Plastic pollution is a big problem in the Dominican Republic, and critical action is needed to keep our land and sea clean. The Litter Less Campaign activities have made a big difference to our students. The topic speaks to them. Everybody is now busily taking action: Older students are teaching younger students about the 5 Rs (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle), our school community organizes school wide action days and the students who participated in the YRE competition are taking stance as young reporters for the environment.”
“Deaf and Blind to Plastic”
14-year-old student Wilner Perez Otañez created a Campaign image to alert to the consequences of excessive use of plastic: “Soon enough we'll all be swimming in a sea of bottles, and some will drown in it. This is a call to stop this excessive waste of plastic bottles.”
© Wilner Perez Otañez
Students and teachers from the ASPnet school Liceo Niccolò Machiavelli in Italy also focused on the topic of plastic pollution. “Next time my students are on a beach, they will think about the hours it took us to clean just one beach from litter and pollution. Our students are now much more aware on the positive and negative impacts we can make on our environment,” explain teachers Monica Rizzo and Mariella Fasanelli.
“A world wrapped in plastic”
Their 12-year-old student Alessandra Enfurance created a Campaign image to call on people to learn to use plastics responsibly to avoid planetary suffocation. She now advocates for using alternative, less harmful materials to protect our environment.
© Alessandra Enfurance
Fostering waste reduction, environmental awareness, collective action and sustainable behaviours stand at the heart of the Litter Less Campaign. The Istituto Comprensivo 1 Siniscola in Sardinia is located in a Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Reserve. Teacher Giovannamaria Maloccu talks about the impact the Campaign has had in their school: “The Campaign has helped us to broaden and deepen our work on environmentally conscious tourism. Students are documenting our MAB’s biodiversity, identifying risks and coming up with creative solutions, which they share through articles, photography and videos for the Young Reporters for the Environment competition.”
“The little important monsters”
With a photo reportage entitled “The little important monsters”, their students Piras Andrea, Mele Chiara, Scrudato Stefano, Lavra Rebecca and Salis Celeste are raising alarm bells for the protection of vital species for biodiversity: “The beetles can be defined ‘animals extremes’. They live in deserts and in the dunes and they are important bioindicators of the habitat’s health. The species are less frequent in our beaches due to marine pollution and bathing activities; and this jeopardizes the survival of all beaches’ animals.”
© Piras Andrea, Mele Chiara, Scrudato Stefano, Lavra Rebecca and Salis Celeste
In Japan, ASPnet students from the Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School are conducting comparative research on single-use plastics and more generally plastic waste and exchanged on their results during trips to their partner schools in New Zealand and Canada. Edward Escobar, the teacher running activities at the Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School explains: “They administered 4 surveys to compare waste management between Japan and New Zealand to better understand how similarly or different litter and waste are being handled at home, in school, in the supermarket and in parks and public spaces. I’ve seen them make good progress especially in their critical and analytical thinking skills.”
Japanese ASPnet students from the Kyoto Gaidai Nishi High School working in teams to analyse impacts and solutions to litter and waste
© Edward Escobar
To reduce the amount of waste in their environment directly, students and teachers from the Namibian ASPnet Coastal High School organized beach clean ups and shared key ideas and messages to reuse, recycle and repair before throwing away
““Leaners have appreciation and understanding of the importance of keeping our environment clean, they share their ideas with others, and we all discuss how to recycle waste at our school now.””
Namibian ASPnet students from Coastal High School after a successful beach clean up.
In this project, participating teachers and students have been working through the tried and tested YRE methodology, which includes 4 steps:
STEP 1 – INVESTIGATE (to identify and define a local environmental issue, investigate relevant information from primary and secondary sources, conduct original research, such as surveys/questionnaires, and interview key individuals or groups to obtain first-hand information, etc.)
STEP 2 - RESEARCH SOLUTION (to identify possible solutions through experts/stakeholders voices to the environmental issue and evaluate its likely effectiveness, giving reasons for and against, etc.)
STEP 3 – REPORT (to create a journalistic piece to report on the local environmental issue and its possible solutions, identify target audiences and tailor communications, plan reporting on the issue and use the appropriate journalistic format and style, etc.)
STEP 4 – DISSEMINATE (to share their work with a local audience through the media, e.g. newspaper, magazine, radio, television, social media, exhibition, film show, local events, etc.)
YRE’s 4 steps methodology
To support the participants in these steps, they met in regular online meetings to share and exchange on promising practices as well as a range of resources, including online courses on environmental journalism, pollution or the circular economy as well as sample lesson plans on Litter and Waste. Not only did the students tackle a real problem in their environment, but the project fostered their skills and knowledge about the environment, enhanced their communication and citizenship skills, individual initiative, teamwork, critical analysis, social responsibility and their leadership abilities.
“It is very encouraging to see how teachers are empowering their students to take an informed stand on environmental issues, investigate them, research solutions, and report and disseminate this work through journalistic pieces,” says Gosia Luszczek, International Director of the Young Reporters for the Environment. “By giving them this opportunity, the youngsters are given the chance to make their voices heard and to feel that their voice matters.”
““By giving them this opportunity, the youngsters are given the chance to make their voices heard and to feel that their voice matters.””