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Post Tips
Monday, November 17, 1997

INTRODUCTION

A good idea


A newspaper like the Bangkok Post is one of the best places to find new ideas. This week we are going to read about a very good idea indeed, one which has influenced millions of people around the world. First let’s meet the man who came up with the idea in the first place.

Ian Kiernan Mr Kiernan has become one of the most famous and successful environmentalists in the world. Below you can read in his own words why he became so concerned about the environment and what he decided to do about it:

[Ian Kiernan]My concern for the environment was sparked when I was sailing through the Sargasso Sea – a place of myth and magic. But instead of being enchanted by this place I was appalled because as far as the eye could see there was rubbish and debris, a legacy of humankind’s blatant disregard for the environment.

This was the catalyst for Clean Up Sydney Harbour in 1989. On this historic day some 40,000 Sydneysiders turned out to remove plastic bags, bottles, tyres and other pieces of rubbish from the water.

Now we are taking the organisation from "Clean Up" to "Fix up" with our latest campaign Clean Up Australia 2001. This aims to identify and resolve 2001 environmental problems by the year 2001.

But it is not only Australians who care about the environment. People from all walks of life, races, religions and colours are concerned about the increasing levels of pollution in their rivers and cities, the destruction of native forests, the destruction of the ozone layer and the increasing of rubbish blighting their streets, rivers, parks and beaches.

This global concern for the environment has resulted in Clean Up the World, a campaign we run in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme.

This year some 40 million people in 110 countries – from Poland to Fiji, Argentina to South Korea – helped remove rubbish, introduce recycling schemes, promote environmental education and perform environmental plays as their contribution to the Clean Up the World campaign.

sparked caused
enchanted pleased or greatly impressed
appalled shocked about something bad
legacy a situation that exists because of something that happened earlier
blatant shameless; clearly and obviously bad
catalyst something that causes great change
blighting causing damage to
in conjunction with together with
recycling reusing, sometimes by breaking down used materials into their original components and using them to make new products

This week’s story

This week’s story is a commentary by the Bangkok Post’s Deputy News Editor for Environment and Urban Affairs, Wasant Techawongtham. His column appears each Thursday in the opinion and analysis section of our newspaper. This week’s column appeared on September 18th, one day before this year’s Clean Up the World activities began.

Mr Wasant refers to Ian Kiernan, but more importantly, he talks about a campaign that is taking place in Thailand. You might want to join this campaign or, better yet, you may get some good ideas of your own for activities you can carry out at your school. Here are some things to consider as you read.

You will find some statistical information in the column that will help you determine how fast the "Clean Up the World" campaign is growing. Compare the 1993 numbers with the numbers Mr Kiernan himself gave for this year’s campaign.

Many people think that cleaning up the environment is largely a government activity. What does the writer say about this? Do you agree with him?

Find information about the Thai campaign. What is it and what is its purpose? Is it something your class could or should support?

There are several specialised or technical terms in this story. The first is polystyrene foam. You should easily be able to guess what this is. You might even have an example in your room. You should also be able to guess what the CFC refers to as well as the phrase naturally degradable.

THE STORY FOR YOU TO READ

Commentary
..............

[Wasant Techawongtham]
Wasant Techawongtham

It might start with your
lunch container

  1. Awhole lot of people will be doing their bit this weekend to make the world a little cleaner. From tomorrow through Sunday more than 40 million people in 110 countries will undertake a diverse range of activities in a bid to improve their local environment, at least so claim organisers of Clean Up the World. The activities include cleaning up garbage, recycling projects, planting trees, composting projects and public lectures, films and presentations. Last year in China alone some 13 million people collected 154,000 tonnes of rubbish.

    An Aussie by the name of Ian Kiernan started it all. A builder by trade and an avid sailor, Kiernan noticed during a solo around-the-world yacht race in 1987 how the world’s oceans had become a giant rubbish sink. Back in Australia he organised a Clean Up Sydney Harbour campaign in January 1989 which attracted 40,000 volunteers.

    Two years later the event had become Clean Up Australia, and in 1993, with support from the United Nations Environment Programme, Clean Up the World was born. Around 30 million people in 80 countries took part in clean-up activities in the inaugural year.

    Since then more people and countries have joined. In Thailand last year the organisation which brought us to the idea was Magic Eye, the campaign is not just to clean up the world in one weekend. Inherent in the idea is that citizens of the world cannot afford to depend on governments to clean up the environment. This is not something that happens easily judging by the failure of major countries to honour an agreement at the Earth Summit five years ago to reduce greenhouse gases. We must all chip in if we want this world to be a cleaner and more environmentally sane place.

    Magic Eye under its founder Khunying Chodchoi Sophonpanich has quietly launched a campaign that takes to heart this objective. It attempts to persuade consumers to reject food containers made of foam.

    Her idea is simple. Polystyrene foam cannot be recycled and takes years to break down. We use it once and then throw it away to become an eyesore on the streets, in waterways or forests. If we’re lucky, it will be collected and sent to a garbage dump. But even there it sits and some release CFC, a gas that depletes our ozone layer.

    Use of foam containers increases each year. A survey by the Pollution Control Department in 1994 found 2,900 million food containers made of foam made up 80 percent of all foam garbage. Khunying Chodchoi estimates that a mind-boggling 7,000 million pieces will be used this year.

    She would like to see consumers switch back to using more durable and reusable containers such as lunch boxes and multi-tiered pinto. She also plans to urge companies to ban foam containers from their premises and food sellers to use clear plastic containers instead.

    Clear plastic might not be the best substitute for foam but at least it can be recycled and made into other products. The ultimate objective is to reduce the amount of all containers and use naturally degradable materials such as paper, wood, bamboo, straw and even banana leaves as much as possible.


doing their bit doing what they are able to do to help
diverse varied; many different types of
composting allowing plant material to decay so that it can be added to the soil
trade occupation; work
avid extremely eager or interested in
inaugural first; starting
inherent existing as a basic part of; essential
chip in to help; contribute
sane reasonable; scientifically correct
deplete to make less; to use up
mind-boggling difficult to imagine or understand
premises the land and buildings owned by someone


FOLLOW-UP

Doing something

Since Ian Kiernan is an Australian and he organised his first campaigns in Australia, it is not surprising that Australia is the most active country in the "clean up the environment" movement. There are many very well-established clean up programs in Australia and some of the best have developed guidelines (suggested steps) for setting up school clean-up programs. Below is an example. Read through it and decide if it is something your school could follow. You can also suggest changes if you want to:

  1. Set up a meeting in your school with an interested teacher and a group of helpers. The teacher should be able to locate an information package that has been sent out to schools about the campaign. (Remember this is from Australia. Do you think Thailand also has this information?)
  2. You will need:
    • a plan
    • time
    • a note to parents explaining what you hope to achieve and a list of items children should bring, such as gloves
    • Clean-Up bags
    • a list of "no touch" items such as needles
  3. Make sure that you make some advertising posters to hang around your school.
  4. Ask the principal to advertise the campaign in the school newsletter.
  5. Write a short but informative piece for your local newspaper and send it off to the editor. If you are lucky, they might even send a photographer to your school on Clean-Up day.


Teacher’s note
[A teacher looking through the Bangkok Post] The story for this lesson was selected by a group of enterprising teachers who attended a recent Bangkok Post seminar at Phitsanulok. They chose the story for its relevance to their students, their schools and their surrounding areas.

I have suggested a three-part lesson. The pre-reading section contains a short passage — obtained from the Internet — from the man who originally thought up the "Clean Up the World" campaign which has become so successful in recent years. Have your students read what he says. Make sure they understand where he got the idea (from a sailing trip), what he did next (organised a Clean Up Sydney Harbour campaign), how he developed his idea further (Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World campaigns) and what he has planned for the future (solving 2001 environmental problems by the year 2001). You might want to stress the idea of what one person can do with a good idea.

[A group of teachers]

The next part of the lesson is the reading itself and I have suggested a number of things for students to consider as they read. Much of the information from the pre-reading is repeated, but the main focus is on what is being done in Thailand. The follow-up activity is intended to help the students apply what they have learned from the lesson – either by designing a small cleanup campaign of their own or by evaluating the plan that I have given them to consider. This also came from the Internet. Incidentally, if you have an Internet connection here are two sites you might want to visit with your students:

http://www.cleanup.com.au
http://www.best.com:80/~dillon/recycle/guides/common.html

•The story for this lesson was selected by a group of 180+ teachers who attended a recent Bangkok Post seminar in Phitsanulok. It was the later developed by Acharn Terry Fredrickson, BA Stanford, MA (TESL) University of Minnesota, Manager of the Educational Services Department at the Bangkok Post and general editor of this programme.

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Comments to Terry F. at terryfrd@ksc15.th.com
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