Miss Racheal Adesanmi of Faith Point Private School, Idimu has emerged winner of the Lagos State Schools’ recycling competition.
Adegboyega Arafat from Omole Senior Grammar School emerged as the 2nd prize winner, while Oke Phillip from Ajumoni Senior Secondary School, Isolo, emerged as the 3rd prize winner.
27 students from schools around Lagos took part in the competition which was organised by Trash2Wealth in collaboration with Karis & Eleos Hands of Hope Foundation with the theme: “Revamp: Developing the hero in you.”
The event was organised in celebration of the Global Recycling Day.
Using mainly plastic bottles, the students produced a variety of functional items such as stools, water dispensers, mirrors, wall clocks, centre tables, fashion accessories and many other items.
The finished works, which were submitted virtually to a panel of judges saw participants were judged based on “criteria/process, product creativity, sustainability product value and raw material creativity for up-cycling.
15-year Racheal, who produced interlocking block was rewarded with N250, 000 cheque, while the second and third-placed winners received N150,000 and N100, 000 respectively.
All the participants received a certificate of participation.
At the grand finale ceremony which took place at Cedars Hall, Yaba, speakers charged the students to
Guest speaker at the event, Balikis Salaudeen, Co-founder, of Green Republic Farm, encouraged the students to see and take recycling as a way of teaching them about sustainability.
While noting that children are the most likely to make recycling a habit because they are at an age where they’re still open-minded and everything is new, she charged the government to encourage recycling to be taught early on and ingrained as a necessary step to preserving the planet.
“Recycling is an important concept that teaches children to care for the environment. It encourages children to be responsible and show a growing appreciation for Earth,” she said.
According to Salaudeen, the process of recycling involves using waste materials to make new products and reduces the amount of waste sent for incineration.
To enable the students to distinguish three key ways to reduce their impact on the environment, she identified the three R’s to include:
“Reduce: – this means cutting back on the amount of waste used in everyday life;
“Reuse – reuse an existing item in your service in order to minimise waste, and
“Recycle – means when an object can be shredded, melted, or processed in order to create new raw materials. For example, an aluminium can is used to create more cans while paper and cardboard can be recycled in order to generate more paper products.
On the need for sensitisation, Salaudeen charged the government to enact laws and policies and sensitisation programmes for the people so they can be more conscious of taking action against the climate.
Students and indeed everybody must be made to understand the effect of proper usage of waste for recycling and up-cycling.
“We must make sure people educate about the negative effects of improper disposal of waste, which is damaging the environment. People must be educated on why they should desist from trashing their dirt in the drainages.
We also need to have laws and policies so they can be more conscious of taking action against the climate. And anyone found violating the law must be dealt with
Another speaker at the event was Mr Obasi Augustine, a sculptor who spoke on how to develop creativity.
According to him, creativity is making things out of nothing. And it begins with conceptualisation.
He urged the students to always have a pencil and book with them at all times, so they can put whatever comes to mind or catches their fancy down. This can then be developed into a concept, followed by thinking of materials and colours to be used in its actualisation.
He highlighted the importance of engaging children more in creative ventures so they can be more useful for society.
Mrs Bukola Bamiduro, Founder, of Karis and Eleos, in her message to the students, urged them to see themselves as change-makers who must be ready to take knowledge garnered during the competition, back to their respective schools and also their society.
She commended the students for the wonderful items they produced and enjoined them to go back and sensitise people in the environment on the usefulness of the waste items.
