This January, Chadwick International’s Upper School Club CIECO launched a reusable plastic cup circulation system in the school deli. The disposable cups that they had previously been using to serve drinks like bubble teas and smoothies were creating significant extra waste on campus. Thanks to the hundreds of hours club members invested in researching, designing and advocating for this change, CIECO will prevent 20,000 plastic cups at Chadwick annually from becoming landfill.
Recently, this initiative has earned CIECO international acclaim as a finalist in the Earth Prize Contest. They are one of ten teams selected from around the world for their “student-driven initiative designed to accelerate positive change towards environmental sustainability.” Later this month, a winning team will be selected to receive a $100,000 prize to be split between the team and their school.
The origin of CIECO’s project stemmed from one surprising fact: South Korea, despite being a small country that occupies 0.02% of Earth's surface, annually consumes 3.3 billion plastic cups. CIECO decided that they would begin to fix that problem right here on campus.
Now, when students buy a drink at the school deli, they login into a web app designed by CIECO which provides students with a personal QR code. Students’ drinks are served in a reusable cup that also has the cup’s unique QR code. CIECO team members are available at the deli to help students rent their cup using these personalized QR codes. After finishing their drink, students can return their cup to any of the collection boxes that CIECO has installed throughout the building. Every day after school, the CIECO team travels around campus to gather all the cups from the collection boxes and return them to the deli where they are washed and sterilized in order to be rented again.
CIECO is thrilled to have their system up and running, and are already preparing to make an even greater impact in the future. They plan to analyze the data gained from the reusable cup web application to ultimately expand their reusable cup circulation system to nearby institutions and schools with similar circumstances.
“This experience has let us know that even such seemingly impossible changes in one of the school’s fundamental systems can be made by a group of students once equipped with passion and effort,” said David Jung, the head of CIECO and the developer of the CIECO web app. CIECO is currently recruiting more members and invites any students who are interested in continuing to improve upon sustainability efforts at Chadwick to join their club.
Congratulations and good luck in the final round to CIECO members David Jung, Tae Eun Lim, Dana Jeong, Chaeyun Byun and their club supervisor Ms. Jiyoung Won.
Read more about their project in an article published by The Korea Times.
*New Update: CIECO was named Runner-Up in the Earth Prize competition. Read about their winning solution.