Starting a recycling program on my Singaporean campus

I work on this nameless campus in Singapore. Its supposedly one of the best universities in the world.

For all of Singapore's advancement, the idea of environmental consciousness and responsibility have still not made it here. People still eat shark fin soup everywhere, for example, and everything is overpackaged (I've been told its because of the rain...but seriously...
I've lived in some rainy, snowy places, and my stuff remains dry without the overpackaging). Not to mention the waste of paper, plastic and other resources out here.

Among other things, I'm trying hard to start a recycling program at our campus. No one knows what recycling here is. While this is NOT a third world nation, people here just don't get it. Everything goes into the same trash bin and it all ends up in the Singaporean incinerator. What's the big deal, people always ask me!

So I was thrilled when I found out that the University has an Office for Environmental Sustainability (OES). Apparently they do recycling and other stuff. So I wrote them last week, offering to drop by (its a drive away to get between the campuses). There was no phone number, so I emailed. This is what I wrote.

"Hi there,

we are water researchers at XXX at XXX campus. We have been extremely frustrated by the lack of recycling facilities on the campus and would like to start implementing one ASAP.

We'll be on your campus on tuesday, Aug 17 morning. Would you be available for a meeting after 11:30 AM?? We would love to hear your thoughts on how we can work with you to make XXX a greener, cleaner campus.

Thanks,"

Two weeks later (and WAY after my first request for scheduled appointment), I got this email from them:

Dear XXXX,

Thank you for writing in to us!

A list of recycling locations on campus can be found at : ------ website

Do you find that it is insufficient for XXX campus? Perhaps you can suggest to us additional locations and we can forward your request to XXX Campus Management Office(XXCMO). OES will support with recycling bins if XXCMO agrees.

Thank you!

Yours Sincerely,

Office of Environmental Sustainability

Wow. Two weeks later I get nowhere. No sorry. No explanation. No "let's meet up so we can figure this out together." So I went to the website. As an afterthought, somewhere at the end of a badly designed excel spreadsheet, our campus of over 2000 folks has four little recycling bins. I went hunting for them in the rain today. It took me a while to locate one of them. It was sitting as an afterthought behind the canteen. And inside the bin, I found one soft drink can (I know the person who threw it in there). Back inside, at the canteen dustbin where I went to dispose off my food remains, there were about 200 aluminum cans sitting under the little food scraps I threw in.

That says it all.

I have a LOT of work ahead of me...

OES has a great website, twitter feed, Facebook profile and godknowswhatelse. My little office has none of those. Not that that means anything.

Links I liked

1. What's really good and green in food... a GREAT guide that I've started using for food.

2. A refreshing look at the new MBAs, who actually have a conscience and believe in changing the world in the right way.

3. Is venture funding really the best way to get funding for your startup?? Maybe there's a better system.

4. Recycling bins from around the world.

5. How two friends built a $100M company for household cleaning products.

Spotlight: Terracycle

Terracycle Gardening Products (source: Terracycle)


I love Terracycle. Its great for many reasons:

1. it takes waste and makes money on it
2. its eco-friendly
3. (a critical piece that few talk about) it shows us what our trash looks like.

Terracycle is a great model for developing countries that have long been the dumping grounds of the wealthier countries trying to push off their trash problems (eg. U.S.A). Often the ones left to bear the brunt of this dumping are the poorest of the poor. But if the BoP can "embrace the trash," see the value in it as Terracycle does, they could turn their biggest enemy into a cash mine. Here's where outsourcing could actually work extremely well (i.e. Terracycle outsourcing to countries like India, China, and Bangladesh...to name very few).

Recycling posts

In his post this morning, Chris Blattman hit on something that I agree with. There's just a lot of information recycling. Read about something somewhere and then put it in your own post. I plead guilty to that. And I'm sorry.

I'm new to this blogging thing, and I'm not writing about myself or things in my life that are changing. Its been a year since I was last out in the field, where the action is. So I have less first hand information to give, making my posts less vibrant.

Unless I have an original spin on something or it cannot fit into a tweet, I'll do my best to keep it out. My posts will be less frequent, but hopefully when they come around, they'll be fresh.

Also, things are getting a little hectic at the moment. I will be traveling a lot starting this friday through the end of June, and I'm not sure how regular my internet access will be.

As always, thanks for bearing with me. I appreciate your patience and input at every stage.

More Contests Spurring Tech Innovation

Following up on my last post about the X-Prize, I wanted to point out three more contests that are improving technology (this is in the same vein as the WB Development Marketplace, and others like it).

1. Keen Footwear's Stand Up Out For contest:


Keen's Stand For winner, Brian Bell, plans to melt Haiti's ubiquitous plastic trash and transform it into footwear for kids (source: Robert Gottofrey)

Recently Keen released profiles of their Stand contest winners. For each of the categories, entrants had to provide a write-up of their idea for "changing the world," a budget, and a personal statement about who they were and why they deserved the prize. In return, they won US$25,000 to implement their visions. Probably the ones I am most interested in are the engineer who plans to recycle plastic trash collected from the roadsides in Haiti to be converted into footwear (croc-like??); and to a lesser extent (only because its not very original) in another engineer who will be using her prize money to build water pipelines in Kenya.


2. Dell's Regeneration Green Computing Challenge:


The Lawn PC, one of five finalists from Dell's Regeneration challenge (source: regeneration.org)

You've all probably heard about toll e-waste (electronic waste) is taking on the developing world. Most of the toxic e-waste from the developed world ends up in landfills in the poorer parts of the world. So Dell decided to take responsibility and run a contest for greener design. As of a few days ago, Five finalists have been chosen and its upto you to vote for your favorite. Computers, with One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and others, are changing the world and continue to break down a lot of education barriers in the developing world. Green computing will improve access to the electronic world and education in the developing world, without increasing the damage that has already been done. Very important.


3. INC.com's Inspired Innovations Great Idea Contest:



Unlike the rest, this is still running. If you have an idea that will change the world, submit it here and you'll get some cash, venture funding, and other resources to make your dream come true. HURRY, applications are due May 9th. According to their website, here's what the contest is about:

Let us hear about your great idea. Give your submission a headline that describes your idea in brief, and then tell us about your innovation in an essay, being sure to include:

A thorough description of the idea -- Is it a product, a service, an enhancement to something that exists already? The market it serves -- Who is the target market and what need does the idea serve so well?

Be creative in your submission -- sell us on why your idea is truly innovative.

Note: We recommend you create your submission in a word-processing program prior to submitting. Each submission should be no longer than 5,000 characters with spaces. After reviewing and editing your essay, you can cut and paste it into the form below.

Related Posts:
Playpump International
The Development Marketplace and other social competitions/conferences