Raffles Institution

Year 2 Research Education

Design for Change School Challenge 2011

RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT RECYCLING

IN YEAR 2 RAFFLES INSTITUTION (RI) STUDENTS

By: Recycling in School

Team Leader:

Wang Wei Jie David (2Q)

Team Members:

Hu Yi Guo (2Q)

Lucas Lee (2Q)

Wahid Al Mamun (2Q)

Teacher-mentor:

Mr. J Daniel Luther

Acknowledgements

-Our Teacher-Mentors, who have guided us throughout this project:

-Mr Zachary Low

-Mrs Cheryl Yap

-Ms Chan Yan Ru

-The school and the Research Education department, for making DFC (Design For

Change) a new Research Education project, and without whom embarking on this

project would not have been possible.

-Mrs. Lim Yoke Tong, for creating Awareness Week specifically for the Design for

Change Action Week

-Our parents, who have always been our beacon of hope in times of need when

carrying out our project

-Our peers, who have supported us and helped us in one way or another.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Abstract

Arc 1: Proposal of Topic

Choice and Significance of Topic

Feasibility of Topic

Methodology To Be Taken

Arc 2: Literature Review

What is the situation?

What is the degree of the situation?

Who is affected?

What are the solutions?

Arc 3: Methodology Taken for Action Week

Arc 4: Action Week

What we did to do what we did.

What we achieved

Arc 5: Results and Reflections

Strengths and weaknesses and how we overcame problems

Learning points

Reflections

Sources

Appendix:

Sample Survey

Abstract

Our project aims to get more people to recycle, mainly by raising even more

awareness about it. Our observations showed that many people simply throw their

waste materials, such as water bottles and drink cans, away into the dustbins

despite the fact that recycling bins are very close by. As such, we want to get them

to start recycling. In order to do this, 150 surveys were administered on RI Year 2

students, who are our main target audience, to find out the root cause of students

not recycling, as well as to find out possible solutions to this problem. Through the

surveys given out, we found out that most people do not recycle as there are no

incentives in doing so, or were just too lazy to do so. Therefore, we implemented

several ideas, such as creating posters to spread awareness and warn students of

the consequences of not recycling, a Facebook page doing the same thing and

putting “Recycling boxes” in classes for students to be able to recycle with ease.

Arc 1: Proposal of Topic

1.1 Choice and Significance of Topic

This topic was chosen after looking at individual preliminary ideas that were

generated by each and every group member. Even though the ideas were distinct,

most of them had a same problem- that is, the problem of the lack of eco-

friendliness. Slowly, after a few meetings and several discussions with our then

teacher-mentor Mr. Zachary Low, we decided to embark on the project on recycling.

To be more specific, we started on a project to help raise awareness on recycling,

specifically on Year 2 Raffles Institution Students. This is due to the fact that first of

all, the Year 2 batch of this year is our batch, so data tabulation would be made

easier. Other than that, through our first-hand observation from every-day life, Year 2

Rafflesian students rarely maximize the recycling facilities already put in place.

Moreover, the Year 2 students of Raffles Institution would also be an ideal batch

because they have been in Raffles Institution long enough to know about the steps

that Raffles Institution have taken for increasing recycling in the compound, but they

are also young enough to change their mindset about recycling. Thus, the Year 2

batch was chosen as the target pitch for our project. Moreover, with such a small

sample size, we can then examine the reasons as to why they do not maximize the

recycling facilities in school, and thus we can have this project as a start for our

group, or other groups to examine the reasons as to why Singaporean youth or even

youth in general do not maximize already-existing recycling facilities.

Other than that, we decided to take on recycling as our main project because

of the fact that with every passing day, due to our rapidly globalizing society, more

and more resources are being used up to support our rapid progress. Thus,

resources are wasted, and some resources, such as oil, are expected to dry up

pretty soon. Thus, recycling is becoming more and more important as the solution to

this resource crisis. Thus, through our project, we can benefit the society because of

the fact that our findings might be useful to see why Rafflesian youth, and almost in

effect, Singapore youth, do not recycle, such that adaptations to the system can be

made for suiting this problem.

1.2 Feasibility of Topic

We believe that this topic would be feasible because of the fact that many

groups before us have embarked on this topic, and so this would prove to be

stepping stones for our own discovery about the two sides of our problem- that is the

limitations of the Rafflesian recycling system, as well as the reasons as to why Year

2 Rafflesian Students do not maximize recycling facilities. Other than that, we also

feel that it would be possible to carry out this project because according to what we

have observed from our time in Raffles Institution, recycling facilities can be

improved, and at the same time, students‟ mindsets about recycling can be changed

as well through our outreach.

1.3 Methodology To Be Taken

Being a Design For Change (DFC) project, there are some aspects of the

methodology that are compulsory. However, we felt that these methods alone are

not enough to carry out our entire project. Thus, we decided to adapt the DFC

methodology for our benefits.

Firstly, we decided to do a literature review such as to further understand the

recycling attempts being taken by local governments, especially in schools. Through

this literature review, we would be able to come up with the reasons as to why the

system is not fully utilized. However, the literature review, which handles only the

aspect of the problems with our recycling system, would not suffice as our baseline

for our solutions. Thus, we also decided to carry out a survey on a sample size of

more than a hundred Year 2 Rafflesian students such as to further find out the

reasons as to why students do not fully utilize the system. With these two pieces of

information in our research, we can then tackle the next part of the project, which is

the mandatory Action Week, based on the Design For Change (DFC) outline.

Basically, the Action Week is a seven-day, staggered series of actions that would

have to be undertaken by all participating groups such as to tackle issues already

collected from preliminary research. With the conclusion of the Action Week, we

would then assess the effectiveness of our solutions, which would be the net result

of our project, and also the baseline for other groups embarking on similar projects.

Arc 2: Literature Review

We have to find out the problems that a lack of recycling causes, things like

consuming more energy and fossil fuels and deforestation, which lead to global

warming. We also have to look at the root cause of why students do not recycle,

which involves carrying out surveys and possibly interviews (something that we did

not do)

Every single being on the planet is affected, because firstly, global warming occurs

on a global scale, and secondly, things like contamination and deforestation also

affect wildlife. Along with that, recycling can also be linked to the economy, and that

means it has the potential to change many things, and in effect, lives.

The current situation of the world is already dire, with millions of tons of rubbish

disposed of every year, and even more than 90% of plastics not recycled. Sea levels

are expected to rise by a few inches in the next few decades, and the temperature is

steadily inclining.

The obvious solution would be to get more people to recycle, mostly by educating

and raising awareness for recycling. For some people, the thought of recycling the

recyclable they‟re about to dump into the dustbin doesn‟t even cross their mind. By

raising awareness, we can lead to them recycling recyclable items. For others, it

could be that they‟re too lazy, in which case we could provide incentives for them.

However, due to a lack of money and a good system, the only incentive we can offer

them would be for them to be able to survive global warming and not die to disasters

resulting from not recycling, and going poor from the rising prices of oil and running

out of natural resources.

As such, we‟re plan use standard things like posters and also utilize Facebook due

to the rising use of social networks and increasingly technologically adept teens of

today.

Question 2

35

9

48

17

7

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Always Most of the time Sometimes Rarely Never

Frequency of Recycling

No

. o

f re

sp

on

den

ts

Series1

Arc 3: Methodology Taken for Action Week

3.1 Survey Results and Analysis

Before embarking on our Action Week, we decided to come up with a survey

such as to complement our literature review, which only tackles the question of as to

why the school recycling system is not being utilized fully. As part of our research on

how frequently Year 2 Raffles Institution (RI) students recycle, we conducted a

survey on our research topic, in order to gauge a general consensus on how

frequently Year 2 RI students recycle, and the reasons for their willingness, or lack

thereof, of recycling. Our survey had 8 questions crossing over a range of topics. We

did our survey on a total of 158 respondents, of which 115 surveys were valid. Our

respondents were all Year 2 RI students, who were all aged from 13 to 14.

From the survey, we found out that 48 respondents (41.38%) recycled only

some of the time. 35 of the respondents (30.17%) would only recycle at an

infrequent basis. Only 7 respondents (6.03%), however, would recycle all the time.

This can be seen in the graph below.

Fig 1- Question 2

The above results show that most Year 2 Rafflesians do not recycle at a

frequent rate, as seen by the fact that 83 respondents (71.55%) either sometimes or

rarely recycle. This is compared to only 24 respondents (20.69%) who would at least

recycle for most of the time.

In Question 3, we asked the respondents who do not recycle all the time as to

why they do not do so. Of the 104 respondents who did not always recycle, 49 of

them (47.12%) stated that they were too lazy to do so, which is a sizeable amount of

people. This possibly reflects the sentiment that Year 2 Rafflesians hold about

recycling, and this may be something we would hope to tackle through our project.

Other than that, 43 respondents (41.35%) stated that there are not enough recycling

bins nearby, which was why they were not willing to recycle a lot. Of these 43, 35 of

them (81.40%) responded in Question 6 that the school should put more recycling

bins around the compound. This reflects the fact that they do care about the system

and want it changed for their benefit.

There are many reasons given as to why Year 2 Rafflesians do not recycle at

a frequent rate, as seen from data from Question 4, which asks the students whether

the school‟s recycling program is effective, as well as to ask the reason why they do

or do not recycle at school. From this question, we can see that a large proportion of

students do not believe that the school‟s system is effective in making them recycle.

In fact, 94 of the respondents (81.04%) believe that the school‟s recycling system is

not that effective. The reasons as to why they responded in such a manner are

depicted in the pie chart in Figure 2.

The pie chart below shows the reasons as to why the respondents who had

not felt that the system that was in place in RI to increase recycling was effective in

making the students recycle felt that way. As seen above, the most common

response from these respondents was the fact that the school makes little effort in

promoting recycling. Out of the 94 respondents who had not felt that the system was

effective, 35 of them (37.23%) feel that the school does not make much of an effort

to promote recycling in school. This can be alleviated if the school takes certain

measures, such as to further imbibe recycling into the CLE (Character and

Leadership Education) syllabus already present in RI, as well as visual aids above

existing recycling bins, as well as rubbish bins, such that students are made aware

of where to recycle. Furthermore, 21 of the respondents (22.34%) state that there

Question 4b- Why is the system not effective in making you recycle?

2 5 5

2

21

11 6

35

6

Don‟t care about recycling

Don't see the reason why should recycle

Not sure

No incentives to do so

Not enough bins

Not many people recycle

Recycling bins not used

School makes no effort in promoting recycling.

See recyclable stuff in rubbish bin

are not enough bins in the compound. While it is true that the school would be able

to provide more bins in the compound, this statistic is not entirely reliable, because of

the claims that there are not enough bins in the Junior Block and canteen, when

there are already at least 3 bins in each of these facilities.

Figure 2- Pie Chart of Question 4b

The respondents were also asked in the survey as to whether the school‟s

measures in placing recycling bins throughout the compound are effective in

Question 6. The first part of the question asked them if there is a need to place more

recycling bins in school, as seen in the graph below.

Figure 3a- Bar chart of Question 6a

The graph above reflects the opinion held about the respondents that the

school is not really doing much. This is evident, because it is seen that 86

respondents (74.78%) felt that more bins are needed in the compound, as compared

to the 29 who said it was not necessary. The 86 respondents who had said yes were

then asked in the second part of the question as to where to put the bins. Their

responses are seen below.

Figure 3b- Pie Chart of Question 6b

As seen above, a majority of the 86 respondents (34.88%) feel that there

should be recycling bins in the blocks themselves. This is probably because they are

not aware of the fact that there are already blocks in these locations. This reflects

Where should the school put the recycling bins?

30

1610

8

7

7

6 2Blocks

Classes

Replace dustbins

The entire compound

Canteen

Crowded places

Don't know

Staircases

86

29

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Yes No

No

. o

f re

sp

on

de

nts

Do you think there should be more recycling bins?

Question 7

17

2

24

4

51

13

5

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Advertise recycling

CIP

Don't know

Enforce it as rule

Incentives

More recycling bins

Make recycling more

convenient

Su

gg

este

d M

eth

od

s t

o I

ncre

ase R

ecycli

ng

No. of respondents

Series1

that the bins there should be put in a location quite accessible and visible to the

students, instead of its present location, at which the students are unable to

recognize where the bins are. The next most given location was the classrooms, in

which 16 respondents (18.60%) wanted recycling bins in. This is probably due to the

fact that they are very busy, and the effort to recycle at a place distant from the class

might seem to be a disruption to daily schedule. Thus, they would prefer to have

recycling bins in the classes themselves.

As for the suggested methods given by respondents to increase recycling in

the student population, the presence of a reward system was the most cited

suggestion to increase recycling, as seen in the graph below.

Figure 4- Bar Chart of Question 7

The graph above shows that out of the 116 respondents, 52 of them (44.83%)

suggested that the school provide incentives to the students such as to recycle. This

shows that the students are willing to recycle only if some reward system is present.

The next most cited suggestion is for the school to advertise recycling. 17

respondents (14.66%) called for the school and other educational boards to further

advertise recycling. This reflects that probably the school has not done enough to

promote recycling. By advertising recycling, it may be possible that students are

made more aware of the reasons of why we should recycle, and thus make recycling

part of their daily routine in life. Thus, advertising recycling is a possible step the

school may make in further increasing recycling rates in RI.

The last question we asked them was about the implications of not being able

to recycle properly on the world. This was to assess whether they were aware of the

implications of global warming. The results are as follows:

Figure 5- Graph of Question 8

As seen in the graph above, the most given factor was the factor of global

warming, which was stated by 59 respondents. 48 respondents* then gave climate

change as another factor. The least given factor was the one on economic loss,

which was stated by 12 respondents only. This shows that the students are generally

aware of the negative aspects of not recycling properly, but it can be further

embedded into our final plan such as to further increase awareness.

3. 2 Implications of Results on Action Week

The surveys we had conducted over a total of 158 Year 2 RI students, of

which 116 of them were valid. Although this does not make up most of the RI Year 2

2011 cohort, we feel that 115 respondents is a rather accurate view of the cohort,

which means that we can use the results from this survey to help our Design for

Change (DFC) project. There are two main ways that the results garnered from this

What are the effects of not recycling?

48

59

42

13

12

19

Climate change

Global Warming

Wastage of Resources

Wasted Energy

Economic Loss

Polluted Landscape

survey can help our DFC project. For one, by finding out that nearly half of the

respondents had suggested an incentive system as a means to get students to

recycle more, we can thus use it into effect as one of our ways to change the

environment around us, as DFC aims to do. For instance, by having a reward system

for the class which recycles the most within a given time, we can target this main

suggestion that the respondents have already provided to us. Also, by finding out

that the respondents want recycling to be promoted more in school, we can thus set

out to give a presentation on recycling and its relevance to the school, particularly

the Year 2 RI students, who are our target audience. Alternatively, we could also use

posters.

After long deliberation with our teacher-mentor, Mr. Zachary Low (who left the

school for further studies a few weeks after starting on these discussions) as well as

our new teacher-mentor, Ms. Chan Yan Ru, we decided to take up several courses

of action. Firstly, we decided to take part in the Awareness Week exhibition set up by

Mrs. Lim Yoke Tong from the 19th to the 21st of July such as to further spread our

message through an exhibit. Other than that, we suggested the uses of posters, as

well as an incentive idea, which involved an incentive for the class who recycled the

most amount of stuff in a given amount of time. This was to be done in conjunction

with the Year Head for Year 2, Mr. Daniel Chua, and the Year 2 CECC (Class

Executive Committee Council)

Arc 4: Action Week

4.1 Awareness Week

Thanks to Mrs. Lim Yoke Tong‟s attempts to set aside time for all the Design

For Change (DFC) groups to complete their Action Week, the school decided to set

aside 3 days solely for DFC groups to carry out their Action Week. Thus, from the

19th to the 21st of July, 2011, our group decided to take part in the Awareness Week

exhibition, as it was so called. This Awareness Week would be essential for us to

spread the message of recycling to the school. On these 3 days, the four of us took

turns to man our given booth at the Main Atrium, while answering questions about

our project. At the same time, our preliminary posters (not officially stamped by the

General Office) would also be on showcase at our booth to catch the attention of

passers-by.

4.2 The Facebook Status

During our discussion, it came to us that we do not need to rely on physical

outreaches to get the attention of people. We realized that most of our target

audience, that is to say the Year 2 cohort of Raffles Institution, are active on the

virtual world, and thus, we decided to harness this to our advantage. Lately, we have

found out that Facebook has been used as a main political weapon, and a medium

for social change. This was most evident when a stream of Facebook statuses

regarding child abuse originating in America caught the attention of many public

figures on Facebook, such as the news broadcasting site CNN, as well as others.

This then became a global phenomenon for about 2 to 3 weeks.

The idea of the Facebook status is to put a status that is generic, and then

asking people to „like‟ the status on Facebook before posting it on their respective

walls. Of course, this was a risky game, seeing as Facebook has many people who

are apathetic towards recycling, and those who claim that posting a message on

saving the environment on Facebook is just a contradiction to our Action Plan.

Despite all those risks, we took the chance, and it was reasonably successful,

although unlike the child abuse status, our status remained local.

4.3 Recycling Boxes

Due to one of the reasons that students do not recycle being the

inconvenience of having to go a long distance to reach a recycling bin, we tried out a

new initiative within our own class – to install a box for students to throw their waste

paper into, and when it was filled up, one person could bring it to a recycling bin for

paper and recycle it all, thus making it much easier and convenient, and allowing

students to recycle more.

4.4 Posters

We designed a myriad of posters designed to achieve multiple things, such as

to raise awareness about recycling, remind students to recycle, share facts about the

negative consequences of not recycling, or a combination of these. These posters

have been approved and most of them are placed above the dustbins in the canteen,

thus reminding the students to recycle their waste instead of trashing it, while a few

others are in common areas, such as the Junior Block‟s staircase landing, so that it

can capture the students‟ attention and get them to recycle.

Arc 5: Results and Reflections

5.1 Results

During the course of this entire project, we learnt many different things and we

managed to bond together as a team. Even though we changed our teacher-mentor

2 times, we remained focused on our goal, which was to persuade people to recycle.

Even though our project was not a resounding success, we believe that we have

made a considerable impact on the state of recycling in Raffles Institution and

changed the mindsets of some students. As such, we consider our project a success

as we have achieved the goals that we set at the start of this project.

5.2 Problems and how we overcame them

We encountered many problems while doing this project. An example was finding

solutions to the problem that we identified. Initially, we believed that it was extremely

difficult, if not impossible, to change the mindsets of students in Raffles Institution.

However, we boldly carried out the solutions that we brainstormed and it turned out

to be successful.

5.3 Learning points and possible future extensions

We learnt many things during the course of this project. We learnt that

communication is extremely important in a group in order to succeed as we would

not be able to carry out our allocated tasks properly as we are not clear of the things

that need to be done. Also, we learnt many things about our group mates that we did

not realize before embarking on this project. As with any other project, there is room

for improvement. We believe that interviewing related persons would have added

great insight to our project. Also, we could have launched a bigger scale initiative to

persuade more people to change their mindsets and start recycling.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Warmer and sicker? Global warming and human health." Nova: Science in the News, Accessed April 6, 2011. http://www.science.org.au/nova/081/081key.htm.

Podesta, John. "Global Warming's Toll on the Economy." American Progress, September 17, 2007. Accessed March 08, 2011. http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/09/podesta_nast.html.

"Green Facts." EcoForce: Eco Products That Work, Accessed March 06, 2011. http://www.ecoforce.co.uk/green-facts.htm.

Bowling, Clarke . "Cartoon pictures for Facebook profiles a sign of support for anti-child abuse campaign." New York Daily, December 03, 2010.

Appendix A: Our Survey

Good day, Sir. We are a group of Year 2 students and we are carrying out this

survey for our RE project, which focuses on recycling in RI and mainly why students

do not recycle, as well as possible solutions. We would appreciate your cooperation

and help in completing this very short survey. Please circle the appropriate answers

and answer the open-ended questions honestly and seriously.

1) What is your age?

13

14

15

16

2) How often do you recycle? Please provide as accurate an estimate as

possible.

Always 100% of the time when it is possible

Most of the time Perhaps 70-90%

Sometimes 50-70%

Seldom 1-50%

Never 0%

3) Please rank the reasons for why you do not recycle with 1 being the biggest

factor and 2 being the next biggest factor

Too lazy

No recycling bins nearby (Within 20 metres)

Arguments against recycling found online

Think that recycling does not have much of an impact

Others: _______________________________________________________

4) Is the school‟s effort in making pupils recycle effective? (i.e. are they

succeeding in getting more people to recycle)

Yes

No

Please elaborate:

______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

5) What items do you normally recycle in school?

Drink cans/bottles

Cardboard

Paper

Metal

Glass

None

Others: __________________________________________

6) Should the school put more recycling bins around?

Yes

No

If so, could you suggest where, as well as what bins to put?

____________________________________

7) Could you suggest some possible ways to get students to recycle more?

______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

8) Please try to state as many impacts that result from not recycling as you know

______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

Thank you for your time. This information you have provided will be very

helpful and will give us great insight towards the problem of recycling in RI.

Do be informed that we may conduct a follow-up survey in the future which

will be something along this line, so please try to show the same co-operation

then as you have shown now.

Have a nice day!

Appendix B: Our Posters