SixMinusOne
If you are facing any number of problems in life, try to eliminate at least one. That was our initial thought when we started this journey. Six random people from different parts of the world, happened to attend the same class in the halls of Panteion University, and connected over a common cause; To eliminate plastic and promote zero waste lifestyle, one action at a time. Starting from our very own community and trying to make small — yet significant changes.
This decision came from scrolling through The 17 Goals | Sustainable Development by the United Nations. We chose to focus on Goal no 12, which is to ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns and challenges topics such as chemicals and waste, sustainable tourism, electronic waste and the global “material footprint”.
But how do you start making a change? How does anyone know where to begin, who to talk to, what resources they may need? That is still a work in progress. Our professor, Ms Betty Tsakarestou, certainly made things easier for us in terms of guidance. In our weekly class “Social Issues, Social Innovation and Corporate Responsibility” she listened to our cause, embraced our ideas and gave us valuable feedback and guidelines on what to do next.
Brainstorming is the first thing you do. We went for numerous coffee dates, lunch breaks, university meetings and talked and talked and talked… We all had big dreams and ideas, hope and excitement to make something out of this experience. So we put all our thoughts to paper and proceeded to eliminate what seemed out of our league. And then we had our core idea. Lead our community towards small actions that have a positive impact. It didn’t have to be big or extravagant, just one small action is enough — if it happens collectively and by a big number of people.
So let’s get down to business. We formed an NGO called SixMinusOne and created an official website to post about our actions and take other people with us on this journey. While we were still in the process of brainstorming and researching our cause, we also connected with people and similar groups on social media through our twitter and Instagram accounts.
In the meantime we continued our research on this specific cause. It is very important to have as much information as possible when you decide to act upon something. We went through the UN website and studied the targets and indicators of our chosen goal and tried to really understand all of its aspects. It was quite interesting to see what similar actions were being made in other European countries that started out small and then became something important. Actions like 4Ocean and #DesnudaLaFruta caught our eye, since we felt connected to their motives and goals.
We kept talking about all the reasons why this was so important to us as individuals and as a team. First of all, each and everyone of us hopes for a plastic free world. We are deeply concerned about the endangered wildlife both on land and in the ocean and we feel responsible and eager to save it. It is very frustrating for young people like us to actually fear about our future on the planet. Climate change has officially become climate crisis, so it’s basically now or never. We thought to ourselves that it’s a one way street; one action at a time. Let’s take initiative, start making small lifestyle changes, influence others with our behavior and create a mindful, responsible community that acts towards sustainability. Moreover, we believe that a country as beautiful as Greece, can’t be associated with pollution and plastic waste as it would be demoting and undeserving.
So we envisioned #TheWorldWeWant ; Clean, crystal clear, full of hope, optimism and possibility.
Now, our inspiration, research, goals and dreams have turned into a mission.
Driven by a common need to make the world around us better, we are determined to contact businesses and educate them about zero waste, organize cleanups, reach local municipalities and ask for more recycling bins and just be as active as possible to send our message loud and clear; We can change the world, one action at a time.
In order to understand our target group and talk to real people about our mission, we had to create some “personas” and imagine what they would be like in real life. What kind of groups are we trying to reach? How many? How can we approach them and what are we going to say to them? Our main “personas” ended up being four different people, all based around our university.
For starters we had a Panteion University faculty member, who could help us understand the recycling situation on campus and answer our questions regarding this matter. If they could work with us to make our university “greener” and more sustainable, that would be ideal. Our next potential stakeholder was a local business owner. We have many cafeterias, restaurants, etc. around the university , so partnering up with them and influence them about zero waste practices is something we looked forward to.
Then, there was the student persona; a university student, just like ourselves, wanting to be more involved with sustainability and responsible consumption. Finally, the food hall that works for Panteion University is a place that uses a lot of plastic equipment and has a lot of food waste, so we wished to speak to them and discuss about sustainable options and zero waste.
Now that we have a few personas in mind, it was time to meet with real people and make actual conversations. We tried to reach our rector at Panteion, who seemed pretty interested in our initiative, but due to her busy schedule couldn’t meet with us yet. We have another faculty member in mind that we wish to speak with, though. Our interviews with some students all resulted in pretty much the same thing;
- They recycle at home.
- They don’t see any recycling bins on campus so they just throw everything at the waste bins.
- They would love to see more recycling bins.
After talking with people from the Library of Panteion University
- Library staff recycles their own paper cartons on the recycle bin on the street.
- They don’t have recycling bins in the library for the students.
- They would like to see that happening.
We also did a few interviews with a local coffee shop, as well as the university’s food hall.
Nana’s cafe
- They wash every plastic /paper box and recycle it.
- They send the glass bottles back to the companies.
- They use the recycling bin on the street.
- Every straw is biodegradable.
Panteion University Restaurant
- They recycle all plastic and paper packages and throw everything in specific recycling bins.
- After talking with us they decided to eliminate plastic forks and knives.
- They will look into replacing plastic packaging with biodegradable ones, as long as its compatible with food handling standards.
That was motivation for us to begin with our first activation. We had the idea to campaign about the lack of recycling bins in our university so we went ahead and made some posters to spread the world around Panteion.
Our next step was to create some “Experimental Recycling Bins” and place them in key spots inside the buildings of the university. We thought that this would draw the attention of both students and faculty members and start the conversation about what can we do better as a community. We created the bins from empty boxes and try to check on them from time to time and recycle the waste. Right now we are in the process of making real bins, in association with a constructing company.
Meanwhile, we organized our first official cleanup, which we communicated through our social media platforms and by word of mouth. It was a very fun experience and good opportunity for our NGO to get out there and interact with people. We cleaned many spots on Philopappou Hill, as well as Aeropagus hill. It was interesting to see how people there asked about us and our mission and we were very satisfied with what we achieved afterwards.
Now we are still slowly progressing, but we do have a few projects in mind for the future. Our web designer is currently working on creating an app that we want to launch. It is focused on the cleanup part of our organization and the whole engagement of the community. The idea is that the app will allow you to notify us about public places that need cleaning, and we will contact local municipalities or organize a cleanup ourselves. Our goal is to create a circle of people that act on such things and get the job done. Other than that, we are looking into the recycling bins situation on campus more thoroughly and have some meetings planned.
It’s easier said than done.
When you try to create something and have to collaborate and work with other people, things don’t always run smoothly. There were and still are many obstacles in our path, but we try to take it step by step, one action at a time, as our motto states. When we couldn’t meet with the university’s rector we were a bit discouraged. But then that’s when the experimental bins idea came through. We wanted to send a message and act on something that really bothered us. The pandemic situation definitely didn’t help the process either. Restrictions, fear of exposure and certain regulations occurred that stopped our plans and we had to reschedule a lot. But we are still here, still brainstorming, still changing our minds, and that’s what it really means to try and make real life impact.
It needs devotion and time. You take your time with things, think everything through, discuss with your colleagues again and again. You have all these amazing ideas and yet you find it very difficult to make them happen in real life. It takes courage, passion, imagination and will power. At the end of the day, when you want to achieve something big, you never stop working and you keep your eyes on the prize. And for us, the prize would be to lead a sustainable community and make small lifestyle changes daily, that contribute to saving our planet.
