Contest in 2011: The Austrian NGO „die umweltberatung“ Eco Counselling invited all creative individuals to design durable and creative alternatives to the commonly used plastic bags and to produce a step – by- step instruction for other interested persons on a video. The aim was to raise awareness for the enormous waste of plastic material and for the consequences for the environment. In concerns of related environmental topics teachers and students were supported by educators and experts of “die umweltberatung” by demand.
Target audiences are adolescent students and young adults. Most of the submissions came from young adults, 58 creative videos of individual Reuse Bags have been submitted to the contest. The participants created bags e.g. from used umbrellas, water balls, tights and even ring binders, the Reuse Bags had to pass a tear strengths test. The contest jury was composed of experts in the fields of film and fashion. The videos of the winners were presented at the ceremony and all submitted videos are available on www.youtube.com to serve as motivation and examples of good practice for all interest individuals. This project equates to one of the important aims of “die umweltberatung”: waste avoidance and careful use of resources.
The presented case can be used as good practice example for cross curricular activities. Teachers (biology and arts) can use the results of this contest to motivate their students to deal with waste avoidance and careful use of resources.
“die umweltberatung” provides a number of educational materials dealing with relevant topics; they can be found and freely downloaded by interested individuals from the website of this NGO (German language): http://www.umweltberatung.at/themen-wohnen-abfallvermeidung and http://www.wenigermist.at/downloads.