ZERO WASTE

During the recent mobility of schools from Estonia, Sweden, Poland and Italy to IES Canido (Ferrol, Spain), we made our best from our loofah production.     We organised several activities related to the use of loofah. Here are some of them. GOAL: The goal of the whole set of tasks is that, by using digital means, the students will create a poster or a small presentation for a startup they are going to invest on. They will sell loofah and have to promote it to get as many customers as possible.   Activity 1 STEPS: First, we divided the students in international small groups. They were 60 in total: 7 from Estonia, 12 from Sweden, 13 from Poland, 6 from Italy and 22 from Spain. We asked them to form groups of 5 students and, therefore, we got 12 groups. (10 minutes) Second, the groups gathered together and we showed them individual loofahs and asked them to touch and analyse the product and start thinking about which products they could create using this biodegradable ...

Ever experienced your dish cloth wasn't eco-friendly enough? Well, we've got the answer: make it out of hemp!   Hemp is a plant that you can make a special kind of string out of. As long as this string isn't processed it's completely biodegradable, meaning it can be composted in nature as good as anything! Therefore this dish cloth wouldn't kill the fish in the ocean should it be dropped in there.   Hemp also possesses resistant properties against mold and other fungi, which means there won't be any suspicious mushrooms growing on it. And now you might say, "but my non-eco-friendly, low-time-use, plastic dish cloth doesn't mold!" My response is: first of all it's not eco-friendly, and second of all, you can make the hemp cloth yourself! Just buy some hemp string, learn to crochet and make one! And when that one stops working, make another one!   I made the dish cloth in the picture during my visit to Poland with Erasmus. I saw that other people...

During this mobility we learned about sustainable ways of reducing the use of single used plastic in our homes.  We got the chance to make a wax wrapper out of bee wax and cloth. Wax Wrappers are used to contain food while, for example travelling or just storing it. These wrappers can reduce our use of plastic and it's more eco frendly. When we made the wax wrappers, we took cloth and put it in a frying pan filled with melted wax at around 60 degrees Celsius. Then we took the wax wrappers and let them dry, followed by crumpling it to make it easier to bend. Using my own homemade wax wrapper has been a positive experience. It is easy to use and keeps food fresh longer. Although it made my hands and fridge greasy every time I used it. It didn’t feel sanitary to use it as a wrapper direct on food.     The wax wrapper can replace plastic wrap, which is a common one time use product. Plastic wrap is often used and gets thrown away directly after, by using a beeswax wrapper ins...

Wieliczka Salt Mines are Patrimony of Humanity because of their importance through the centuries in providing wealth to the region where they are located in Poland. Visiting is a must as the mines are really beautiful and pretty an impressive experience to the visitor, who must go down about 400 steps to reach the corridors which can be visited. It's just a small portion of the full mine, where they still work today. Here is an interview between the two of us (students) where we talk about our experience in the mines and, below, you can also see a few photographs. Enjoy! CLICK to watch the short video. CLICK to see the photo gallery.

This was another activity that we enjoyed a lot as many of us had never knitted anything. We were shown what to do by a few Polish students and teachers who were really good at it and we learnt quite easily. In small groups, we started our designs using this sustainable material (jute in this case) and were amazed at what we got by the end of the activity.   Here is a presentation where we explain the activity with a few pictures as well as we describe the materials a bit more. Have a look at it, you won't be disappointed. CLICK HERE to see.

In this activity, we learnt how to make a beeswax wrap which will help us store food in a sustainable healthy natural way. The only precaution you have to take when preparing this material is closing the windows because as wax is exactly that, wax in pure state, it attracts other bees in the vicinity and they may hurt you!   This was an interesting activity as we learnt about a natural product which can help us reduce the use of plastic and we were working in international teams, which allowed us to communicate in English with our European mates.                                           A Polish teacher is cutting the wax to melt it. We brought the materials we made home and we are using them with good results. CLICK HERE to see all the process.

We have chosen this title for our post because, after visiting, we think it is a really hard experience, but, at the same time, in our opinion, it should be visited as you experience in reality what all people who were taken to concentration camps could have felt. The places, both Auschwitz and Birkenau, make you shiver from head to toes. The conditions the prisoners used to live in were inhumane and one wonders how it is possible that situation could have happened. It is a reminder of cruelty of human kind which should not be repeated ever. So, if you are a sensitive person get prepared for the visit because, probably, you will cry. Anyway, as a homage to those who were prisoners and died in the camps, we recommend the visit. CLICK HERE to see our experience in the camps.