Organizational Skills
This week, as it is the first full
week of school, I prefer to take it slow and pace myself on the amount of work
I have to do. It is not like summer where I do not have to be as stressed out
about other assignments because there were none. Now, since there are projects
and homework from other classes, I am taking it slow so that I do not overwhelm
myself.
Communication
I talked to my dad about my Personal
Project contract when I asked him to sign it so that I could hand it in to my
supervisor and the MYP office at school. He told me that this product was a
good idea and that I will learn a lot from focusing on so many different
topics. Additionally, I interviewed an old friend of my father’s on Sunday
after church, who happens to be the owner of Eco-Plas, Mr. Sugianto Tandio. Eco-Plas
is a company that manufactures biodegradable plastic bags and other items that
are made of plastic. He gave a talk on TedX, a conference show in which
specific people are invited to speak about their organization(s) or other
topics that may need to be addressed or at least contemplated by others. He was
also named one of the Social Entrepreneurs of the Year this year, which is a
big title.
Information Literacy
From the interview with Mr. Tandio, I
learned quite a few things. First, that using plastic products is very hard to avoid,
and it cannot be recycled forever. This is why his company manufactures
biodegradable plastic bags made from tapioca; they degrade within a few years,
which solves the problem of plastic waste piling up in landfills and causing
landslides. Plastic bags are not the only thing Eco-Plas produces. They produce
gloves to be used in salons (which are stainless and breathable), dog waste
bags, degradable styrofoam (used in Hoka Hoka Bento restaurants), pens (used by
Office Depot), and more. In order to get companies to use Eco-Plas’ plastic
bags, there must be a financial benefit and maybe even a social benefit. As
many supermarkets use this Eco-Plas plastic bag, such as Indomaret, Alfa Mart,
and Hero, there most likely is a benefit. It has only been on the market for
two years, and has already grown to be quite a big business. The concept that
Mr. Tandio told me about was that when creating a product, look at “the end of
life scenario”, which means that one must look at the after effects of the
product. This is because most people tend to look at “now” instead of “later”.
thymoset plastic (which cannot be
recycled). Thymo is usually used in plastic Aqua bottles, plastic bags, and other things like that, whereas thymoset is used for electronic parts such as
in cars, tablets, and other things. He also said that the only place in the
Jakarta area in which one can buy biodegradable plastic garbage bags was
Hypermart (which incidentally, is quite near to my school).
