2012-03-22 Class Review

It was a wonderful evening! 

Jerry, Chris, Ammar, Taiya, Helge, Barrett, Jonas, Humor, Tina, Ming, Zaili, Hans

Hans, Kurt, Tony, Jonas, Michael, George, Donald, Kafei, Vita, May

I was late for class as usual but I was also really amazed by the number of the CI students. Again, there were more than 20 students joining the great night and I had to find a seat really close to the blackboard. However, don't take this wrong. I've loved sitting close to the teacher since I graduated from college. It's weird but true.


I missed most of the introduction part so I could only get to write down everyone's names when I arrived. It's a long list! NEAT!! In today's class, we had five brave hearts to give presentations. Ammar was the pioneer to share a piece of news about how many plastic bags are used a year in Europe and the total weight is 800,000 tonnes! Although some countries have banned the very thin plastic bags, there's still a big gap that we have to work on.  Right after that, I(Jonas) added some more information about how many tonnes of plastic bags we use in Taiwan annually - the figure is estimated to be 105,000 tonnes. Italy was the first country to ban the non-biodegradable plastic bags and some other countries like China, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Bangladesh followed. Ireland was the first country to introduce a charge of 20 US cents per bag in 2002. It was raised to 22 cents in 2007. It did help to reduce the plastic bag litter and push the shoppers to use the long-life bags. However, here comes to an dilemma - if a plastic bag is used just once, then a paper bag must be used three times to compensate for the larger amount of carbon used in manufacturing and transporting it, a plastic "bag for life" must be used four times, and a cotton bag must be used 131 times. I also mentioned that it's also a tough call to choose between the disposable diapers and the cloth diapers. The previous ones consume lots of trees and other materials, but the latter ones require most water, electricity or other powers when the users clean them. 



Kurt introduced a very special architectural project made by his old classmate. It's a garbage skyscraper http://horizonroylin.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-deserve-garbage-skyscraper.html in downtown New York city. It expresses not only sarcasm but also the demands of a city. Sooner or later, there's a big chance of building it if we fail to deal with the garbage we created. 

Barrett gave a wonderful presentation about the histories of the plastics and the capitalism. He provided us a clear picture about how much the technology's changed people's lives with the chronological order. He also reminded us of the old times 50 years ago when people had cleaner air to breathe, water to drink and habitat to live in with less industrialization and pollution. On the other hand, it points out that people with better technology and more wealth would find it difficult to do a lot of things in moderation. People are regarded "consumers" instead of "individuals" and the pursuit of money at a certain degree drives us off the track. Sadly, Barrett told us that it's a huge challenge to make a difference. However, our new friend from Norway whose name is Helge  held a different aspect and shared some thought-provoking quotes with us. The world is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed - Gandhi. 


The last presenter was Jerry and he offered us some figures which cheered us up a bit. The average amount of garbage which each person produces each day in Taiwan has been decreasing within the last decades. He is not only the person who brings up the ideas of 4R but also the one who dedicates himself to the principles. We all have the right to choose to do something different. Besides Reuse, Reduce and Recycle, there's one more thing we can do - REFUSE.  Protecting our environment and making it better require each one's effort and determination. We have to step out to make a change!