Shanghai Students Took the First Relay-leg of the Roots & Shoots Festival

On a lovely autumn day, a group of students, dressed in the stylish green Roots & Shoots T-shirts, attracted the attention of people who passed by. This robust Roots & Shoots group from Shanghai World Foreign Language School (SWFLS) kicked off the China Roots & Shoots Festival relay campaign.

The R&S Group of SWFLS was founded in 2004. During the past decade, it has organized numerous outstanding environmental projects including paper recycling, expired drug recycling, school-uniform recycling and healthy diet campaigns. They have continuously developed and introduced new ideas of greening their school.

The group believes that environmental protection goes beyond one-off events. It is a way of living. For example, pieces of waste paper can be turned into a sketchbook; expired pills ought to be dealt properly; before graduation, tons of school uniforms should not be thrown away but instead, they can be donated to impoverished areas or used as handicraft materials.

The group has been working hard to ensure continued success of Roots & Shoots in their school. The group members have not discarded a single piece of paper that has not been used on both sides as a benefit of the Eco School Audit. In the second semester of 2014, they recycled almost 150kg of paper and plastic bottles and 180 school uniforms during the graduation season. What’s more, they collected over 360 boxes of expired medicine.

The group began to see change happen in the school. They share green tips on the school website and WeChat account as well.

To have a “green” school, it is more efficient to develop an internal “recycle and reuse” system on campus than to depend on external help. If every school is able to find an appropriate approach to recycle “wastes”, then it could reduce costs significantly. The R&S Group in SWFLS set a great example.

The three offices joined hands in celebrating the Roots & Shoots Festival launched on World Peace Day, September 21st. Over the period of two months, Roots & Shoots groups will paint their green dreams and pass them on to fellow students in a different city.

Every province will be represented in one giant map of China. The Roots & Shoots groups are responsible for including elements of plants and animals unique to their home provinces in the artwork of the map to reflect the biodiversity of China. The map blueprint started its journey from Shanghai and will draw the relay to a close in Beijing.

As the first runner of the national relay, Yuxin Liu, person in charge of the uniform recycling project in the R&S Group of SWFLS, made a few points that:

• The change she sees is that more students are environmentally aware as a result of the school uniform recycling project; the school uniform recycling project is helping students form a habit of recycling and reusing as much as they can;
• The change she has made is that by spreading the message, every group member has adopted a more environmentally friendly lifestyle emphasizing on reusing resources;
• And the change she hopes to see happen is that more students will join in the school uniform recycling project, and share more great ideas on renewing old school uniforms.

All R&S groups around the country can contact our School Coordinator, Miss Xiao (xiaoxia@srschina.org）and require a color filling template of the city or the province you are in. Let us complete the challenge together!

Additionally, no matter if you are an R&S member or not, you are very welcomed to share your green dreams with us. Write down “the changes I saw, I have made, and I hope to see” and send photos to xiaoxia@srschina.org.

Students in Jiangsu will take the second leg of the relay. Are you ready? You can also check our relay route by following us on WeChat (roots_shoots) or our website www.srschina.org.