Earth and Me Seminar 1: Waste Management

I have just finished all my preparation for tomorrow meeting with my dear interns, and now it is time for me to review my energetic day before going to bed. 

A month ago, I registered for Earth and Me seminars and fields trips. At that time, I wondered how they would be: interesting ?! practical ?! or just like the others environment seminars or conferences held by other organizations. I mean there might be no differences: theories - activities - and so on. However, what made my mind curious was the way AIESECers organizing, so I decided to join to see what the young could do differently from the other professional conferences.

BUT - yesterday evening, I received an email that I had not been chosen as the participant of the first seminar. I felt quite sad and disappointed - the feeling like when I lost something. While I  was trying to registered for the other seminars as AIESEC Hanoi expanded the registering time, I received another email from Earth and Me project. As a Local Supporting Team Member, I was invited to the seminar: Waste Management of AIESEC Hanoi held on Friday July 15th, 2011 as an motivator. The other members in my team were also invited to become the motivators for the seminars. SO WHAT - it is our honor to contribute to the Earth and Me project. In addition, it reminded me of the benefit of joining in Local Supporting Team - "free seats in seminars - field trips - other activities of Earth & Me project".

I came to the seminar in the afternoon earlier than the starting time - and WOW - many people were there; and the first impression that I found out was that the participants were all ready to join in the seminar held by the very young student members of AIESEC Hanoi. The atmosphere was NOT stained but friendly and practical. People were divided into groups with the facilitators as foreign interns. That amazed me, and it was also what I was looking for. Let view back 1 hour before I came to the seminar; I was at home, dressing and thinking "Oh dear, the seminar may just like: people sitting on the chair, listening to the presenters, sometime feeling sleepy because of a long presentation" - but hell NO, it was different. I even could not feel sleepy any moment because everything was so successful.

Have you ever joined in a seminar or conference where there is no electricity and people still LOVE to participate? That was another difference I found out. It seemed like the electric-off could not decrease the enthusiastic atmosphere in this big room. NO slide show, NO air-condition, NO image clues did not mean NO success. As Duong - president of AIESEC Hanoi said "We are saving the electricity" (and why  does saving electricity contribute to the green planet, please join in the next seminar: Energy Conservation to know more about it). 

I was also impressed by the MC - Arthur, a handsome guy from Brazil. Yes, I knew him before but he was a really good MC on this day. I liked the introduction time of all the interns. I am interested in the presentation of Anastasiya and Arthur about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) which contains more than 35 million tons of garbage. Actually, before their presentation, I had not had any idea of what GPGP was; I even did not know its existence on earth. 

Many people wondered why there was a huge patch in the middle of Pacific Ocean without the human action. Men have not taken a huge ship to bring all of the garbage to that "waste continent"; but men indirectly causesof GPGP. According to Arthur when he answered a question from one participant, by throwing the trash on to the land, people make GPGP bigger and bigger. The fact is 80% of garbage on GPGP coming from land, only 20% from ship. The reason is that when rain comes, all the garbage on land may be swept away to the river, and the rivers often lead to the ocean. The garbage which cannot be recycled like plastic bags will existed for thousand years or forever, and they drift along the ocean flow to a place now we call GPGP. In Indian Ocean, there is also a garbage patch but smaller then Pacific; so that men are making two news continent where there are no houses, no trees, no people, but LOTS OF GARBAGE. It is terrible !!!! 

 GPGP - North Pacific Gyre

The presentation from an AIESECer about people behavior and awareness made participants enjoyable. I like his way of presenting - funny, amazing, but also serious. He gave us  the fact number of garbage in Hanoi. He made a comparison between To Lich river and Singapore river - Kallang Basin. He had many many real examples and I like it. I like his quotation that "Put the garbage word out of your mind - if we think it is garbage, it will be garbage - if we think it is useful thing, it will be usable for us". Thinking about this quotation for the rest of the day, it really works with me - I know what I can re-use rather than throw them away.

 Singapore river now is no more polluted (Photo: kualalumpurian)

What I like more in the seminar is that people feel no fear of discussing. All the atmosphere was friendly and collaborative. For example, my group had 10 people from different school and at different ages. We had a 16 year old girl but also 22 year old student. How diversified! All the members in a group contributed a lot at the discussion time and we all talked in English. Everybody gave their ideas, that why we had four impressive presentations from different groups. Because of no electricity, we did not have any music; however  I still  known the amazing and incredibly awesome body movements from AIESECers and interns that I have never done before. It made me feel fun and relaxing. 

Again, was this seminar different from the other seminars by other organization ?? YES IT IS. The theories might be not much different, but the ways the YOUNG did were different - the ways AIESEC did made participant feel like they had to do something immediately and right after the seminar - the ways AIESEC Hanoi organized made people feel NOT stained or nervous, but open and interesting.

I do not know what to say right now. I do not care about the electric-off anymore - I just want to join in every single next seminars and field trips. I am WAITING for them ! 

- Axl Lee -

Posted in: AIESEC,AIESEC Hanoi,earth,Earth n Me,Local Supporting Team,LST,news,review,waste management