World CleanUp Day 2020

World CleanUp Day 2020 Last Saturday, on 19th September, over 130 members of the BIS HCMC school community, including students, parents and teachers from across the 3 campuses, joined volunteers worldwide and in the city to participate in World CleanUp Day.

Last Saturday, on 19th September, over 130 members of the BIS HCMC school community, including students, parents and teachers from across the 3 campuses, joined volunteers worldwide and in the city to participate in World CleanUp Day.

World CleanUp Day is a global social action movement aiming to tackle the issue of waste management and disposal around the world. The event was organised by the BIS HCMC CleanUp D2 Club which is led by a team of Year 11 students, in partnership with ReThink Plastic Vietnam who arranged clean-up events across the Thao Dien area. It was great to be joining a number of organisations in the aim to raise awareness of sustainability issues and the environmental impacts of economic growth on the environment, all whilst keeping our patch of Thao Dien tidy. 

Not everyone was able to join us at the Early Years and Infants Campus, and so several members of our community also conducted their own clean-ups in their local areas. We were impressed to see so many people taking this initiative and spreading awareness of World CleanUp Day even further in HCMC.

Though this year we limited numbers and had a smaller event, this did not deter our community and in 3 hours across 5 volunteer groups we collected more than 60 full bags of rubbish and several bags of plastic. Here at BIS HCMC we are already working on reducing the waste that is produced by the school with our #2020PlasticPledge to ban all single use plastics on all of our campuses. This is just one step along that journey: our student volunteers separated the plastic waste that can be recycled and our CleanUp D2 and Precious Plastic teams have been processing the plastic this week. We have a goal to start turning this plastic waste into new items before the end of this term!

Of course, the clean-up was also a House Event with points awarded to Saigon, Dalat, Hue and Hanoi for members participation, and extra points for bringing family and friends. Overall, Dalat House had the most participants on the day and at home and have begun the year with an early lead!

Lauren Binnington
Deputy Head Teacher