The ACtravaganza Can Collection Campaign is a 3-month project, organised by the ACJC Science and Mathematics Council. It aims to promote awareness and active participation in recycling within the college. The project started up with an inter-class competition which motivates students to source for potential locations where beverage cans are heavily consumed, to collect and recycle them. The campaign ran through weekly collection and donation for 10 consecutive weeks and finished on a high note: 15,000 aluminum cans have been collected, which would subsequently be donated to Sembwaste Pte Ltd. Additionally, the 15,000 can tabs have been donated to project 11, a project that called for collection of aluminum can tabs to provide materials for manufacture of prosthetic legs for the amputees. It is estimated that about 2000 can tabs are able to make one prosthetic artificial limb.

Rationales

In light of the "Go Green" movement, this timely event aimed to not only raise awareness to the participants (all ACJC students) about the importance, benefits, as well as the feasibility of recycling, but also to help inspire in them a spirit of community involvement. As classes compete with each other to be each week's Can Donor Champion, they learn how to use limited available time to organize small scale, yet meaningful collections. Knowing that all the can bodies would be donated to SembWaste Pte Ltd, and all the can tabs would go to Project 11, the students hence have sense of contributing to the community at the same time. They would learn that recycling would not only save the environment from waste, but also can result in meaningful activities that can touch the lives of the less privileged.

The process

The J2 core members, as well as the teachers-in-charge, of ACJC Science and Mathematics Council, were actively involved in the planning and preparing for the campaign.

After seeking approval, the organizing team then sourced for manpower, which was divided into 4 committees:

+ Publicity committee was in charge of making the project known to the students, explaining its rationale effectively and thus influencing the students' support. Their products include weekly updates of a notice-board that keeps track of the school's recycling progress. They also have designed many high-quality posters to raise awareness about the project.

+ Can Collection Committee was in charge of weekly collection. On every Wednesday and every Friday afternoon, a team of 3 - 4 students would be manning a booth to collect any donations from the students. After collecting, they have to count the cans and arrange them orderly in recycled carton boxes.

+ Prizing committee was in charge of respective class's record and determining each week's top 3 can donors to award prizes.

The campaign has surely raised greater awareness of environmentalism among the college students, as well as the organizers. It was a joy every time we see classes coming to our booth and donating cans generously. It was especially touching when many of them showed concerns about the school's recycling progress just to know how many prosthetic legs can be made. Overall, the project has achieved greatly in terms of spreading the message about recycling: its importance and its benefits.

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