Inspiration in the Field
The following article was written by James Tosdevin, a teacher and the Senior School Global Citizenship and Sustainability Lead at Dulwich College Seoul.
From one extreme weather event to another, we are constantly reminded that the climate crisis is real and that we need to act immediately. One of humanity’s greatest challenges is particularly top of mind around this time of year, with Earth Day and World Environment Day falling in April and June, respectively. During this season of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) reports, businesses vye to unveil their annual sustainability initiatives. However, we must seek to address the climate crisis throughout the year and beyond the level of business and government.
We must engage the rising generations that will inherit the legacy of today’s environmental decisions. We have seen the impact that just one child can make. Greta Thunberg was only 15 when she started advocating for climate crisis action. While she will undoubtedly continue to be an icon of environmental protection, her recent graduation from school raises the call for millions of youth around the world to demonstrate how important their voices and actions are.
With this in mind, what could schools do to help develop sustainable behaviors at an early age? I want to share a compelling example of student engagement, as I have seen first-hand how students can become active participants in addressing global challenges such as the climate crisis. I have seen how fostering global citizenship among students can lead them to care deeply about the world around them and to follow up with meaningful actions to mitigate the climate crisis, which is at the heart of the ESG movement.
Inspiration in the field: The plastic problem
There is a floating heap of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean that is 16 times bigger than South Korea. This was one of the startling facts confronting students as they arrived at the unassuming Eunpyeong District workshop operated by Would You Love (WYL), a Seoul-based startup founded in 2021 that gathers plastic waste, shreds it, and melts it down to create an impressive range of premium products such as furniture.
I discovered WYL when co-founder Konrad Becker came to our Dulwich College Seoul campus in April to deliver a “Dulwich Talk,” modeled after Ted Talks. On that occasion, he explained how he and his team had been motivated by reports that Korea was producing a disproportionately high amount of plastic waste. I have since learned that Korea is responsible for around 10% of that so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, according to research published in September 2022 by Scientific Reports.
As I led our students – aged 14 to 15 – on the long street from Seoul’s Saejeol Station to the WYL workshop, other facilities caught my eye. Some of them contained bags filled with discarded cans awaiting collection, others were overflowing with seemingly forgotten motorbikes and scooters undergoing repair. In a further symbolic twist, Konrad later told me that this whole area will likely be “upcycled” by the kind of gentrification seen in other industrial Seoul neighborhoods.
Konrad greeted us on the street outside his workshop before giving us a tour of the interior. There were numerous sacks holding plastic granules of various colors. The blue ones, for instance, had once been water bottle caps. There were also piles of plastic waste yet to be shredded - the students were visibly stunned as they moved through a corridor lined from top to bottom on either side with stacks of food takeout containers. Their reaction made it clear how impactful this moment of realization had been for them. They were witnessing, first-hand, a snapshot of the waste we leave behind on a day-to-day basis.
Students got to choose plastic granules to create their own designs across a large flat tray. These would later be pressed in an oven-like machine that the WYL team built themselves using blueprints that are free to source online. The process of melting and reforming these granules creates a stunning effect of marbling that you feel compelled to touch to believe that it is still the same plastic. Beyond art and design, however, learning about this process was a cross-curricular learning opportunity for students as they covered other elements of geometry, geography, and chemistry.
Once the tray of reformed plastic cooled, it could be cut and sculpted into just about any shape, much like wood. As a business-to-business operation, WYL has been commissioned to make everything from café furnishings to a full-scale gingerbread house for Kangwon Land theme park. Students got to take home a souvenir of this ever-versatile plastic “marble,” with upcycled coasters and keyrings produced using their designs. These will surely be conversation starters at school and beyond, and an important memento that shows the possibilities of reuse, recycling and upcycling.
Tracking our own progress
We are grateful to have been the first school group to visit WYL. We saw for ourselves how people have identified a local problem and are solving it in a creative, innovative way. As important as the experience was, however, we realize that it is essential to commit to concrete actions and tackle systemic change.
Thankfully, we have already set the wheels in motion as our school recently published its first Sustainability Progress Indicator Report. This was an initiative shared with our family of Dulwich College International schools across Asia, reinforcing the idea that our community actions could have a much greater impact collectively. Having worked directly with our students in Seoul to create this report, I am enormously proud of the effort that went into it as well as the work our community has undertaken in relation to global citizenship and sustainability.
To offer some examples of the issues our students identified, they have committed to banning the use of glitter at school because of its role in generating microplastic pollution. They have also reduced packaging for snacks and prohibited plastic knives on campus. This is in addition to other student achievements such as picking up trash while jogging, or “plogging,” by the Han River, giving up meat on Mondays, fundraising for Greenpeace, and reusing gently used books and uniforms.
To help maintain this momentum, our school will publish a sustainability report annually. This will allow us to set goals and ensure that our community is engaged in a variety of sustainability efforts. It also means that our students will have experience producing the kind of reports that will continue to be important for all institutions in the future. Most of us will probably be directly or indirectly involved in ESG efforts. ESG must present action, and we can start students off early by helping them develop sustainable habits that will both make a difference now and last into adulthood.