Fukushima Keietsu
Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to start the presentation by asking one question.

Have you ever felt powerless when you want to involve the people around you? We are asking this question because we had a similar experience recently when working to achieve Goal 13 in the SDGs.

This is the issue we used to face in our dormitory. Students use many plastic bottles, but the labels and caps were not being removed correctly. This is a problem because not removing the recyclables in the proper method decreases the recycling efficiency, and this, in turn, produces a huge amount of greenhouse gasses.

To solve this problem in our dormitory, we made a poster about the correct recycling method. However, there was no positive response and nothing changed. We realized that it wasn't very effective because simply explaining the seriousness of environmental problems does not resonate with people who are not interested in such issues.

Just like us, we believe you also had a similar experience, the challenge in changing others' actions for the good of all. We know that we need "everyone's" involvement to solve the environmental problem. But, again, it is very difficult to get "everyone's" help. In this situation, what is the best way to involve people who have no interest?

Now, I want to show a speech given by Shinjiro Koizumi at the United Nation Climate Action Summit in 2019.

"In politics there are so many issues, sometimes boring. On tackling such a big-scale issue like climate change, it's gotta be fun, it's gotta be cool, it's gotta be sexy."

As you can imagine, the word sexy caused controversy, however, we focused on the key words fun and cool. We thought that more dormitory students would become involved if we made throwing away trash fun and cool.

From all the ideas and projects that we have done, we would like to introduce two ideas that we think will help people who are not interested in the environmental problem become more involved. We are hoping that you will work together with us to reduce plastic waste!

Miyazono Kaya
The first idea that I would like to introduce is what we call the ''The Ultimate Choice Box'', which we actually conducted in our dorm as a way to promote the proper recycling methods.

This project came to our mind when we learned that Japan has one of the highest recovery rates of plastic bottles in the world, 93%, which is great! But, on the other hand, the recycling rate of plastic bottles has not reached the recovery rate, which means that Japan does not actually recycle all of the plastic bottles collected.

Moreover, when it comes to bottle-to-bottle recycling, which means breaking down the used plastic bottles and using them again, the rate for Japan is only 10 percent, which is really bad!

But why is that?

Plastic bottles with leftover beverage or caps and labels attached are the main causes that are creating the gap between the recovery rate and the recycling rate.

And, now we will get into the main topic, ''The Ultimate Choice Box''.

This project is based on the idea of ‘‘making eco-action a fun and habitual one’’. What we mean by eco-action here is to recycle plastic bottles in a proper way unconsciously and to raise recycling efficiency.

More precisely, we placed a piece of paper with the question written on it and two answer boxes to collect plastic waste. The topic would be something like “which one do you like, こしあん or 粒あん?” And people will use bottle caps to vote for their answer.

As you can see in this picture, before we started this project, most of the plastic bottles were thrown away with the caps and labels still attached. However, ''The Ultimate Choice Box''' enables us to consistently collect around 300 caps each month from May.

In order to engage a larger number of people to take eco-actions, we believe making eco-action an unconscious habit is more important than appealing to people's conscience.

This project can apply to many situations and places such as schools, offices, or even the place next to the vending machines. Among these options, placing the “Ultimate Choice Box” next to the Vending machines would be the best idea, because you can throw away and recycle the plastic bottles properly while you are there.

However, recycling the plastic bottles in a proper way to boost recycling efficiency is not the only thing that we need to work on. Have you ever thought about how to reduce the usage of plastic bottles?

Chikamori Yui
The second proposal to involve people who are not interested in environmental issues is the "MY Oasis Project". The purpose of this project is to "reduce plastic bottle waste" by encouraging people to use My Bottle, which is a reusable water bottle.

Do you use “My bottle” when you go out?

"My Bottle" is one of the concrete actions we can easily take. It is said that "if you use your My bottle 12 times, the CO2 emission will be lower than buying plastic bottles". However, according to the NGO Greenpeace Japan, only 20% of the people who have My Bottle use it. Even I don't use My Bottle sometimes! Why is this happening?

We surveyed 560 students at Sophia University about their reasons for not carrying their My Bottles. These were the common answers we received: I know it's good for the environment, but… “there are few water servers” and “I end up buying a plastic bottle when the water bottle is empty”

From these results, we believe that if there is a social system that easily gets drinks into water bottles wherever we go, these problems will be solved, and therefore increase the incentive to carry My Bottles.

This is what the My Oasis Project is all about.

In this "My Oasis Project", we came up with two mechanisms. First, a water bottle called "My Oasis Bottle" will be produced and sold as part of the project. A portion of the sales will be used to manage the project and purchase water servers, which will be placed in public.

However, we will not just increase the number of water servers, but also implement a system to properly inform people about the water servers.

The second mechanism of this project is the QR code. By holding up your cell phone to this QR code, you will be taken to a website where you can find the location of the water servers. By printing these QR codes on My Oasis bottles and putting them up as posters in public places, people can get information about nearby water servers. This can give people the option of not buying plastic bottles.

In order to expand this project, we will first seek organizations such as universities and companies that will help support and manage our proposal. We will then have the My Oasis bottles commercialized as goods to raise awareness and funds for the project.

In fact, we are now working with Sophia University to implement the project. Also, water servers are becoming more popular in major overseas cities, and we believe that there is a wide range of opportunities for sponsorship from tourism and local government.

Miyazono Kaya
In conclusion, ''The Ultimate Choice Box'' and "My Oasis Project" are the ideas that we presented to make a larger number of people take eco-action without forcing them to do so. We tried to spice up these two ideas to create a win-win situation between the environment and humans. And these two ideas lead us to build a sustainable cycle.

Finally, to quote Michael Jackson, “We are the world, we are the children”, we really do have to stand united to protect our planet and make it a better place, for ourselves and for our future. Thank you.