World Cleanup Day 2019

World Cleanup Day 2019 On Saturday 21st September 2019, the British International School HCMC hosted the second annual World Cleanup Day as part of the CleanUp Vietnam initiative.

On Saturday 21^st September 2019, the British International School HCMC hosted the second annual World Cleanup Day as part of the CleanUp Vietnam initiative.

Students, teachers and parents from all 3 campuses gathered at the Early Years and Infant Campus to collectively take a step forward to clean up our local community; Thao Dien. More than 260 members participated and showed their enthusiastic commitment to taking responsibility for our planet Earth. We truly adhered to the belief of Thinking Global and Acting Local.

From 8.45 AM, groups of participants gathered and headed off to various routes to clean up District 2. In less than one hour, the first group had already collected more than 20 bags of waste – but we didn’t stop there. Two more groups followed and as a result, we managed to gather 62 full bags of waste all together! During their journey around Thao Dien, participants were asked to record the plastic waste collected in an audit sheet for The Story of Stuff project in order to find out the company or brand that produces the most plastic waste in Ho Chi Minh City.

Despite the hot weather, every participant arrived with a big smile, holding bags full to the brim. After the main event of cleaning Thao Dien, a group of devoted students stayed behind to take another step forward; separating and washing the plastic waste to be used in our plastic shredder as part of our Precious Plastic Campaign.

Precious Plastic is a global community of hundreds of people working towards a solution to plastic pollution. The plastic shredder breaks down the plastic waste into flakes which can then be used in other machines to create brand new products. The extrusion machine will create a line of plastic from the waste which can then be used to make new raw materials such as 3D printing filament in our 3D printers at the Secondary Campus.

The mini eco-fair was also a huge success. Thank you to our local vendors - Gagaco Vietnam, Lai Day Refill, La Xanh Zero Waste Shop, Saigon Suds, Nature4Mula and Limart  - for joining our cause, helping us to celebrate the vast array of sustainable products now available in Ho Chi Minh City.

Participating in this benevolent event was not only extremely rewarding but it was also a day where we could reflect on our daily production of waste. We would like to offer our congratulations to all involved and we look forward to seeing more participants in the future.

SooMin Ryu (11I) and SiHyun Park (11C), ESS and Geography Subject Ambassadors

Discover more:

• 2020 Plastic Pledge
• PRESS - Saving reefs and servicing communities
• BIS Secondary - a tree neutral campus?
• Students engage with Global Goals at the annual NAE-UNICEF Summit