Creating Chingay floats with ap-peel

NUS students use discarded household items and orange peel
IN a time when cheap and good is the way to go, these students from the National University of Singapore have come up with just the right idea for a Chingay float.
Genevieve Jiang, The New Paper 1 Jan 09;

IN a time when cheap and good is the way to go, these students from the National University of Singapore have come up with just the right idea for a Chingay float.

One team of students spent three months collecting discarded orange peel from their campus canteen. Another team spent weeks going door to door at HDB estates near their campus, seeking unwanted materials such as old clothes, blankets, newspapers and household items.

And with a little creativity, the two groups have turned the junk into colourful floats that emerged winners at the university's Rag and Flag Day in August.

Rag and Flag Day is an annual event at NUS. Funds are raised for charity and there is a parade of floats on campus.

The floats produced by the top two teams from the Kent Ridge and Eusoff Halls will be showcased in the Chingay parade on 30 and 31 Jan.

This is the third time NUS teams are taking part in Chingay, the theme for which is 'Wonderland' next year.

The process of building the floats was not easy.

Said Mr Gui Ming Wayne, 22, a third-year bio-engineering student from Eusoff Hall: 'We approached the fruit stall at our canteen to keep their orange peel, which we would collect every week because we wanted to create an orange tree-like structure that spelt out EH, for Eusoff Hall.

'But as we were doing it, we realised that the orange peel would turn black after every month or so, and we would have to re-do everything.

'We eventually learnt our lesson and decided to stick them on only at the last minute.'

Mr Gui and his team of 11 committee members started work on the float in May. It took more than three months to complete.

Apart from orange peel, they also collected thousands of used cans, cardboard boxes, plastic straws, styrofoam boxes, unwanted plastic plates, brushes and cotton from recycling companies.

Their float, made in the shape of a toy-producing factory, involves another 64 students, who will perform as elves during the parade.

Toilet seats

At Kent Ridge Hall, students used materials such as old clothes, blankets, newspapers, toilet seats, pots, and plates which they had collected from residents near campus.

For some students, it meant digging up old items from home almost every week.

Said Miss Chang Zhao Yuan, 22, a third-year business student: 'My father would help me by clearing out his old stuff. Every week, he would hand me some old CDs, CD boxes, unwanted magazines and old clothes.

'What we would otherwise have thrown away became precious to us.'

Part of the Kent Ridge Hall's float, made in the shape of a shoe house, was a windmill with broken plates stuck onto it.

Another part of the float was made with used chocolate wrappers.

Said Miss Chang: 'It's a challenge to use recycled materials entirely. It forces you to think how you can make use of certain colours and textures creatively.

'But this project proves that there is no such thing as junk. Every piece of material can be put to good use if you think out of the box.'