Playing with Sustainability

Our semester is coming to an end and there’s only a few topics left to discuss. This time, it was about the word “Play”. What could we say about this subject?

It involves a variety of things, such as sports, puzzles, board games, video and online games yet other things like playing with nature and also, in a more literal meaning, playing with words.

We, as a class, had to relate play and sustainability by building our ideas with the help of Lego pieces. So, we decided that the best idea would be to incorporate several sustainable sports into an Olympic competition of the future, where the importance of recycling is shown and praised, because in this case it would mean that you could also take a prize home.

It went as pictured:

It will be a pet friendly place, so you won't need to keep your four-legged friends at home to enjoy the show. 

 

Instead of the regular sports we're used to seeing on television, this time we came up with some ideas, as followed:

• A relay race where the baton is garbage meant to be disposed at the end on the correct bin. The winner not only has to be the fastest team, it also has to make the right decision in terms of recycling.
• The sprint race in track and field has a plotwist, where it doesn't matter if you're the first to cross the line. Instead, you have to have the most ammount of cardbord pieces on your hands at the end. Just be careful with paper cuts!
• High jump also makes it to the list. Along with it, we have pole vault and shot put who have the same goal - to be the best at trowing an undesired object into a recycling bin. 
• Olympic canoeing is also a sport that has a lot of potential into becoming more sustainable. Since we're already at the sea, why not make it a better place for the ones who live there? We've designed a competition where the main goal is to gatter all that's not supposed to be in water, in the shortest period of time. 

On one hand, we have the Olympic sports with a twist, but why stop there? 

• In order to save the turtles, we've created a new sprint competition where the person who cuts plastic bottle holders faster wins. Thus, we made it mandatory for the audience to wear cardboard straws, or any other sustainable solution, in their drinks - yet we're hoping for a better option in the future because they become annoying after a while.
• Do you remember those farm markets we used to see on television where they had a contest to reward the biggest vegetable, or the biggest fruit? There's a place for that in our Olympic games. Nevertheless, anyone who's caught using chemicals will be immediately disqualified, as it's considered doping. They must use sustainable ingredients only.

Of course the structure of our improved Olympic games should also be sustainable and use renewable energy throughout the process. Solar panels and wind power will keep the building and machinery working and only filtered water will be used to keep our fields healthy, though keeping in mind that water is one of our most precious resources and we shall preserve it.

Speaking of water, we've decided to put into action a mind-blowing discovery. 

Matter of Trust, a nonprofit organisation, has been using hair to purify water for a long time. 

The idea came from an hairstylist in America, as he was cleaning a client's head while watching the heartbreaking news about another ocean oil spill on television. He had a revelation: if hair attracts oil - and that's why he was washing it at that moment - could it also be used to help clean up the ocean?

Ten years later, McRory and his team started to use leftover and donated hair from several salons so they could make hair mats. Since then, they have already helped in a lot of occasions where the waters were filled with contaminated oils. 

What makes this an incredible discovery is the fact that hair - and animal fur - is adsorvent, which means that it can get coated in oil but it doesn't swell up. The result? Approximately half a kilogram of hair is enough to soak up a liter of oil in under a minute!

That's why we've decided to promote a charity-based activity in our Olympic games, where you can shave your hair for a good cause. Also, since this is a place where animals are welcome and it's becoming hotter by the day - thank you summer time - we also volunteer to give a trim to your four-legged best friends for free, as long as you let us use their fur to help save other animals from oil spilling.

"Play" can mean a lot of things, yet we need to have resources in order to continue living on Earth, so why not combine both and create the greatest Olympic games ever seen? Let's save our planet while we have fun!

Here's a close-up of our mockup: