Republic Polytechnic’s 100,000 Plastic Bottles Challenge

Singapore Book of Records listing for
Republic Polytechnic for the largest mosaic made
A total of 106,060 plastic bottles were used
(Organised by the Conservation Interest Group)

Have you ever wondered just where our plastic bottles go after we discard them? Or how harmful they could be? Well, unless we place them in the recycling bins, so they can be disposed of properly, they will only cause more harm than good!

Do you know that baby seabirds starve to death by ingesting plastic bottle caps? Mother birds, thinking that the caps are food, feed them to their young...

Plastic bottles and their derivatives last for hundreds to thousands of years.

An environmentally-friendly proposal was executed in the first three months of this year as part of an effort to mark Earth Hour 2009. It was scripted by Jasper Soh, winner of last year’s Bayer Young Environmental Envoy  Competition, to increase the awareness of young people about going green.

The Conservation Interest Group invited secondary schools in the neighbourhood to join in the Republic Polytechnic’s 100,000 Plastic Bottles Challenge. The number of bottles collected or who would win at the end of the day was not important. The main purpose of this event was to engage as many young people as possible and to actively encourage them to start a habit of reducing, reusing and recycling.

Our first external collection session with the secondary schools was held on Feb 11. We were all gung ho when we visited the first participating school. It was a long day of counting and sorting the thousands of bottles into four different categories -- small (250ml), medium (500ml), large (1.5l) and extraordinary (odd-shaped bottles) -- and then packing them. Although it was backbreaking work, it was definitely worth it.  

We had three more collection sessions to go. All the while, we kept up our hopes that our message would be spread to the students. The schools we went to were very accomodating. They arranged for some of their students  to help us to sort and count. The students not only sacrificed their recess time to do so, some even had to came back to school during the March holidays to pitch in.

AND YES! The participating schools and RP collected an amazing total of 133,326 plastic bottles, way more than the original 100,000 target! Everyone was on cloud nine!

That done, we began to piece together the largest plastic bottle mosaic in Singapore in support of Earth Hour 2009. The idea of having such a mosaic was proposed by Sabrina Choo, the secretary of the Conservation IG. She was a finalist in the Bayer Young Environmental Envoy  Competition. We did not want to simply recycle the bottles collected, but to use them instead to send a message to the rest of Singapore.

On March 16, Conservation IG members and RP staff began piecing the mosaic together. It was a huge rush as we only had nine days to complete the project in order to finish before Earth Hour 2009 on March 28.

Since we were making the mosaic in support of Earth Hour, we had decided the most suitable and impressionable image would be one shaped like a light bulb. We figured that as light bulbs are small objects, not many would appreciate the importance of light in our brightly-lit urban landscape. So such as image would signify something much, much larger: A ray of hope; hope that if everyone could do a little bit for Earth, our Earth, we will definitely make a huge difference and drastically slow environmental deterioration.

Has anyone tried training or losing weight by using plastic bottles? We found it was possible. Carrying tens of thousands of bottles, sorting them into their respective sizes and colors, definitely burnt lots and lots of calories! At the end of each day, we were exhausted but also tremendously satisfied, which helped us keep up our spirit up.

Piecing, counting, sorting, transporting, measuring, everyone accomplished his designated job well. At the end of Day Five, we were elated to find we were way ahead of schedule! Each hot and tiring day brought us another step closer to our final goal. We could not wait to complete the mosaic and see the results of our labour. By Day Seven , the mosaic  the mosaic was ready for the completion ceremony.

On March 27, our guest-of-honour, South West Community Development Council mayor Amy Khor came to complete our mosaic. As the very last bottle was put into place, there was a great feeling of satisfaction. We had finally completed ourt project!! A total of 106,060 plastic bottles were used. Each bottle represented the hard work and  collaboration of many people.

This event will definitely remain etched forever in our hearts and the Singapore Book of Records.

After the mosaic was dismantled, the bottles were sent to Eveready Manufacturing, where they  will be reduced to flakes and subsequently shipped overseas to be made into polyester yarn for making clothes!

Collectively, our small group was able to do so  much. Together with you, we can do even more! Since we have pledged to continue our recycling efforts, will you join us? Reduce your use of plastic bottles. Instead, use glass bottles. If you need to use a plastic bottle, recycle it after use. Let us all do our part to protect our environment!

• Office of Industry and Career Services
• Office of Corporate Communications
• Office of Estates
• Office of Student and Graduate Affairs
• School of Applied Science
• Centre for Science and Mathematics
• RP’s Green Committee Staff who volunteered their time to help us with piecing together the mosaic and contributing bottles for the project.