The project „Plastics and Prejudice? Sense and Sustainability!“ wants to enable students (age 16-19) to face the challenges of sustainable development in a globalized world. This is why our project focuses on methods of research and the formation of judgements which help young adults to take well founded decisions in their choice of career and which may also change their behaviour in consumption and everyday life. In order to reach these aims, the project centers around five of the 17 Strategic Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN. The five chosen goals (each school picked one) represent the range of possible future occupations in education, science and the world of work. Cooperation with experts from the worlds of science, business and NGOs will be substantial for a successful analysis and examination. Therefore there will be interviews and internships in each city and also during the „city camps“, which will include workshops and days of practise. The students will work on a blog of sustainability with useful tips for young people in Europe, will implement a „Day of sustainability“ at their schools and will apply for being awarded as "Eco-school in Europe". All this work follows three main steps: From me – to you – for us! Less plastics and prejudice- more sense and sustainability in Denmark, Finland, Italy, Spain and Germany - all over Europe !
For two years students, 15-19 years old from Finland, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain have worked in a project called „plastics and prejudice?-sense and sustainability!“ and have become active. The frame of their work were the 17 sustainable development goals to be achieved in 2030, given by the UN . So goals like „Responsible consumption“ or „climate action“ were not just words for the students but they faced the challenges of these goals and made their communities think about a more sustainable future and act for a more sustainable future. In the following we concentrated on topics like: less paper use at school, anti-plastics solutions for water and snacks, fight against food waste in the canteen, growing own vegetables in the school garden, making our own jam and soups and upcycling for a more responsible consumption. On four international meeting we exchanged experiences and worked together on solutions. This is why we were able to establish sustainable structures and products at our schools during these two years. We started by analysing how many ressources are used in everyday day life and in our school community (for example food waste, paper and plastic waste, consumption in the breaks) Our biggest success was the action day on the 6th February in Hamburg! We called it the „Day of sustainability“ (the DOS) and by working together with the whole school community of Otto-Hahn-School in workshops like „swap party for accessories“, „Do your own cosmetics“, „climate cinema“, „Dance workshop for women’s rights“, (just to name a few) we were all little activists! This day will be carried out now every year in our schools! We also tried to get more people involved by creating a blog to give tips for a more sustainable lifestyle: https://gogreengoeplus.wordpress.com When you have a closer look at the logo (a tree with a trunk which ressembles a human being and coloured in the colours of the flags of our countries) we have chosen for our project, it becomes clear that these young people tried to find a balance again for the planet earth.