August 19-25

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”. One also must innovate when creating a product, or else it will not sell well. Apparently, there are two types of plastic: thymo plastic (which can be recycled) and 

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).