What just one child can do

Jerusha DEvan, Today Online 27 Feb 08;

I read with similar sentiment the letter from Phillip Keng Hong, "Going Green a PR stunt?" (Feb 25).

As a volunteer for my company's global project to reduce our carbon footprint, I cannot help but notice that Singaporeans go about their daily lives without much concern for the long-term impact that their actions may have on the environment.

This is because there is not enough awareness propagated to both young and old to transform this into a reality that can be felt.

Floods that ruin rice fields and droughts that damage fields of wheat are probably due in part to global warming. Unless we make a concerted effort to cut down our carbon footprint, a global food shortage will begin and continue to affect us adversely.

The use of disposable utensils should be stopped unless they are for takeaways. When packing food back to the office, there is an option to use office utensils instead.

Styrofoam boxes are not environmentally friendly and more should be done to cut down on their usage. I know of a chicken rice stall which has switched to biodegradable cardboard boxes, and kudos to them for moving away from the norm.

I also agree that there are not enough recycling bins available, and the ones I have access to are not ones where you can segregate paper items from glass and plastic — it is just one big bin.

There was a recycling company near my office and my colleagues and I were happy to use them until we found out they were not 100 per cent genuine.

We collected cans, bottles and plastic containers, even taking the effort to bring them from our homes only to find out from one of the workers that the company only recycled paper and everything else was simply disposed of in the main garbage dump downstairs. When I called the company, they had no comments to make. It seems there is only money to be made in recycled paper and nothing else.

As part of our office project to reduce our carbon footprint, volunteers report on how much energy we use for different items such as transport and electricity and how much we send for recycling. We have to be more conscious of switching off unused equipment and lights, using only energy-saving bulbs throughout the office and making full use of natural light where possible.

However, while we are more than willing to save our cans and bottles for recycling, we were unable to get the cooperation of the building management to engage someone to help collect these items. We also did not get much positive response when we enquired if there was any area where we could, as a group, help plant trees as part of our corporate Go-Green effort.

And, yes, there are too many unnecessary mailers that only end up as waste. I feel the whole Going Green concept needs to be more actively inculcated as part of a social lifestyle that is wholesome and forward thinking.

For a start, may I recommend that parents and teachers try to read to their children such books as One Child written by Chris Cheng and illustrated by Steven Woolman. It is about children, our planet and what one child can do. Global warming, habitat destruction, the accumulation of waste, pollution and many other environmental issues are covered.

It is a simple text with richly coloured illustrations that draw on the imagery of an old stained glass window that is gradually cleaned to reveal the beauty underlying the pollution. This is a hopeful book about the environment for young children. "One child saw trees torn from the ground; saw oceans stained with waste, no longer blue and clean; saw skies choking, blocking the sun."

What can just one child do about the devastation of our planet?