Friday 28 October 2016

UPDATE: The Plastic Bottle Competition

Thank you to all those who participated in this competition. You have helped us in a greater way. We have had a successful collection, a total of 1966 bottles! This is great for us because we can now begin the construction process and put these non-recyclable bottles to good use.

The winners:

Congratulations to Auaha 2 for coming third place, by collecting 221 bottles! You have won the third place prize of $50!

Congratulations to Tirohanga 4 for being the first runners up, by collection 244 bottles! You have won the second place prize of $100!

A HUGE congratulations to Kaitoro 3 for winning the competition by collecting a huge 533 bottles! You have truly earned your prize of $150!


Once again thank you to all those who participated in this competition, you have really helped us a lot for collecting plastic bottles for us to create a green house to benefit out community. By collecting bottles, you have not only helped us, but have had a better impact n the community. We collected 1966 bottles, that is 1966 less bottles being thrown in the dump, but most importantly, there are now 1966 less plastic bottles that could potentially harm the environment. All thanks to everyone that participated.

This is the full list of the bottles collected by each tutor:


Tutor NameNumber of Bottles
Au 111
Au 2221
Au 39
Au 41
Au 5156
Au 62
Au 739
Au 84
Au 92
Au 1024
Auaha Total469
Kr 11
Kr 26
Kr 3533
Kr 48
Kr 50
Kr 6149
Kr 72
Kr 80
Kr 9136
Kr 100
Kaitoro Total835
Trh 129
Trh 23
Trh 31
Trh 4244
Trh 555
Trh 621
Trh 787
Trh 811
Trh 91
Trh 103
Tirohanga Total455
Wh 145
Wh 218
Wh 314
Wh 476
Wh 50
Wh 64
Wh 77
Wh 8 38
Wh 92
Wh 102
Wh 131
Whainga Total207
Kt 10
Kt 20
Kt 30
Kt 40
Kt 50
Kt 60
Kt 70
Kt 80
Kt 90
Kt 100
Kaitataki TOTAL0
School Total1966

Thank you once again to those who participated.

Sincerely 
The For the Future Group 

Sunday 23 October 2016

Our meet with Minister Joyce



On Friday the 16th of September, the For the Future group met up with Steven Joyce, Minister for Tertiary Studies.

We met in the Alfriston College staffroom. This is where we presented our presentation to him.

We shared what our inspiration was for us to do this project, which was the large amount of plastic and waste human produce, and since it is not take care of properly it ends up in our oceans, which can harm marine life. We also informed him about the 'The Great Pacific Garbage Patch' and how it has formed.




We also explained why we chose plastic as the material we were going to use.
We explained the purpose of our project and how it will benefit us and the community.

We were thrilled to meet with Minister Joyce, to share our view with him and help spread the awareness against the amount of waste in the world and the damage it is causing.


Did you know?
Auckland produces enough waste to fill up 100 metres x 70 metres x 20 metres rugby field EACH WEEK!
Image result for rugby field full of rubbish
This is what cannot be recycled, this is the amount produced by Auckland alone every week. Imagine the amount produced worldwide.

Sunday 18 September 2016

Plastic Bottle Competition

If you attend Alfriston College, you most likely heard about the initiative we have started, a Plastic Bottle Competition. The competition kicked off last Wednesday 14th of September and will run through till Term 4, Week 3 Wednesday  26th of October. Our aim is to collect 2,500 plastic bottles, the more the better. Any types of plastic bottles will be accepted as long as they are decently cleaned. We will collect and count the bottles weekly so be sure to write your tutor number on the bottles. The prize will be in the form of money, $150 for first place, $100 for second place and $50 for third place to the winning tutors across the whole school. Bring in your plastic bottles now and help play your part in making this community a better one!

If your not part of Alfriston College, you can still make a contribution. 2,500 plastic bottles is a huge number, so your contribution would be much appreciated. Just contact forthefutureac@gmail.com to make something happen.

Use the #Forthefuture on social media to show your support towards the environment. Your support is greatly appreciated!


Roots Collective NZ

About two weeks ago, we met up with Waikare, one of the founding directors from The Roots Creative Entrepreneurs. The Roots are a group of people who's aim is to empower young people by developing opportunities to showcase creativity, innovation, and design by inspiring the next generation about environmental awareness and sustainability. Waikare came in and talked about his journey with The Roots, and how he has been empowering young peoples lives. He talked about a few of the projects he has done, and he was basically here to share his knowledge and give us an insight of the plastic bottle green house. He has done many projects involving plastic bottles, from lights to sculptures and even green houses that he has made in some primary schools. Waikare helped open our minds into the possibilities of this green house we are planning to build. We discussed the size of the green house, possible building techniques and how many bottles we need. It took 1,500 bottles for Waikare to build a 1M X 2M green house, and it is estimated that we need around 25,000 plastic bottles to construct our 5M X 5M green house. Besides that, we suggested a few building techniques we could use. The first method was a stacking method that he used in building his green house. This method involves cutting the bottoms of the bottles, stacking it and putting a stick through it.

One of The Roots' project involving a green house made of plastic bottles.
The second method we discussed was mulching the bottles. This involves shredding the bottles, and then compressing the shredded pieces into building bricks. These bricks would then be used to construct our green house structure. The third method we discussed was melting the bottles and forming them into bricks. This really helped us identify which would be the most effective and stable structure. Waikare also talked about how he used different materials to make useful everyday products. For example, Waikare used the ends of the bottles that he had cut off from his green house project to make lights. He also used old tyres and some rope to create cheap and effective seats.


Waikare and The Roots Creative Entrepreneurs was of great help to us. We look forward to meeting up with them again in the near future.


Wednesday 31 August 2016

Adidas' Recycled Plastic Shoe

Adidas have recently created a shoe that is mostly made of recycled plastic from the ocean. The only non-recyclable part is the sole, which is made from Adidas' boost technology.




Tuesday 30 August 2016

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch




The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in oceans, seas, and other large bodies of water.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, spans waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan. The patch is actually comprised of the Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, located between the U.S. states of Hawaii and California. These areas of spinning debris are linked together by the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone, located a few hundred kilometers north of Hawaii. This convergence zone is where warm water from the South Pacific meets up with cooler water from the Arctic. The zone acts like a highway that moves debris from one patch to another.

The entire Great Pacific Garbage Patch is bounded by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. An ocean gyre is a system of circular ocean currents formed by the Earth’s wind patterns and the forces created by the rotation of the planet. The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is created by the interaction of the California, North Equatorial, Kuroshiro, and North Pacific currents. These four currents move in a clockwise direction around an area of 20 million square kilometers (7.7 million square miles).The area in the center of a gyre tends to be very calm and stable. The circular motion of the gyre draws debris into this stable center, where it becomes trapped.


What people think the Great Pacific Garbage Patch looks like



What the Great Pacific Garbage Patch actually looks like, most debris consist of micro plastics

To many people who have heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the "Trash Vortex" or "Plastic Island", they think of an island that is literally made of rubbish floating in the middle of the sea, which is wrong. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made of millions of small and microscopic pieces of plastic, about 4 pieces per cubic meter, floating over a roughly 5000 square km area of the Pacific. This amount has increased significantly over the past 40 years. Plastic is not biodegradable meaning it does not disintegrate, it only breaks into smaller and smaller pieces known as micro plastics. The large area but low density of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the reason it is sometimes not visible to the naked eye, and is also not visible to satellite imagery. It sometimes just seems like a cloudy patch of sea.

About 80% of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from land-based activities in North America and Asia. Trash from the coast of North America takes about six years to reach the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, while trash from Japan and other Asian countries takes about a year . The remaining 20% of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from boaters, offshore oil rigs, and large cargo ships that dump or lose debris directly into the water. The majority of this debris—about 705,000 tons—is fishing nets. More unusual items, such as computer monitors and LEGOs, come from dropped shipping containers.

Nobody who studies ocean ecosystems would ever argue that this plastic isn't harmful. But many documentaries and articles about the garbage patch make it seem as if the main problem is that the garbage is killing animals. Birds and fish mistake the plastic for food, eat it, and then slowly starve to death. There is clear evidence that both birds and fish are eating the plastic, but it's very hard to draw conclusions about whether eating it is killing them. Generally, scientists are only able to examine the stomachs of animals who are already dead. Some studies of albatrosses show plastic correlating with poor nutrition and you do see a lot of dead chicks with their stomachs absolutely stuffed with plastic. Fish digestive systems are a lot different from those of birds, so it's possible that what's harmful to the albatrosses isn't affecting the fish as much. The "plastisphere" is a term coined by marine biologist Erik Zettler to describe the creatures — like water skaters — who thrive in an environment with hard surfaces in the water. They are similar to creatures who cling to piers or the hulls of ships. Some animals are good at hitching a ride and they can be destructive. By adding big chunks of plastic these species can move around better, and could be introduced to places like the Northwest Pacific Islands, where there are some of the best coral reefs in the world. In other words, the plastisphere isn't destroying the ocean ecosystem the creatures who ride on the plastic are. We're witnessing an ecosystem that is slowly falling off balance.