Sharjah
Recycling is my favourite hobby. I collect cans, newspapers and plastic bottles on a daily basis. As a child, my prime duty is to protect the environment in any possible way. Our school is always encouraging its students to recycling and go green. There were a few events at school that we have participated in, which involved reusing our school supplies and other items of daily use.
The most fun event was the ‘Recycle Runway’. This is a fashion show hosted by our school every year. The best thing about this show is that all the clothes worn by the models are made out of recycled items, such as pages from an old telephone directory, headphones that don’t work anymore, old buckets and even light bulbs. There were evening gowns made of plastic sheets and chocolate wraps and smart party outfits made out of tea bags and jute. The whole purpose of this show is to inspire people to find creative use for waste and divert recyclable material away from the landfills.
Two years ago, our school had organised a collection drive for all old uniforms that were in good coniditon to be given back to the school, so that they could give it off to charity. Most of them were shipped to some African countries to be reused by students there. As children grow fast, there is a chance that they need new uniforms quite often. It is then best to allow somebody else to use the outfit you don’t need anymore.
We can also do things at a personal level to wipe out waste as students. During my winter break from school, I decided to do some creative work from the cans that I regularly collected for recycling. I removed the top layer of the can, cleaned them nicely and used them to store school supplies, such as colour pencils, paint brushes, pens and pencils. This is very simple and even looks beautiful. And the best thing is that all my supplies are in one place and organised properly, instead of being scattered around. Instead of buying expensive pencil or pen holders, we can spend a little time and make these holders at home. You can even use bigger cans; I liked the small ones because they look more attractive. This is an ecofriendly process and helps save money and reduces waste.
I think we should all play our parts in helping the environment. Our books should be passed on to the juniors, if they are in a good condition. Instead of plastic cups in water dispensers, students should be encouraged to bring their own watter bottles to refill. If notebooks are used less than halfway, the school should allow the students to continue the same book for the next semester.
— The reader is a pupil based in Sharjah.
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