Tag Archives: environment

Club turns masks to bricks

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Dhaka Orchid clean earth project
The Rotaract Club of Dhaka Orchid has been collecting and cleaning used masks and gloves to mix with cement and create new products from the waste.

By Abdullah Al Fahad, Rotaract Club of Dhaka Orchid, Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented us with a new environmental challenge. Every month, more than 120 billion disposable masks and gloves are being thrown out, with some of them polluting our land and water.

Our Rotaract club, like many, is concerned about the environment. Emboldened by Rotary’s newest cause, protecting the environment, we decided to do something about this problem. We began a recycling effort which we called our Clean Earth project to collect masks that were littering our streets, parking lots, and other common areas and find a way to reuse them.

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Planting seeds of motivation to support the environment

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Members of the Rotaract Club of Nürtingen, Germany, plant trees in a cleared area last spring.

Dominik Huhndorf

By Dominik Huhndorf, vice president of the Rotaract Club of Nürtingen, Germany

My Rotaract club established a project, Treety of Generations, to motivate clubs around the world to plant trees in cleared areas. In doing so, we show the power of working with Rotary.

We began by finding two partner clubs on different continents who were as passionate about the environment as we were: The Rotaract Club Cumbayá, Ecuador, and Club MOP Vaishnav, India. With this strong alliance, we launched a pilot project. Continue reading →

Coming to the rescue of bees

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Huge bee sculpture

Dieter Erhard sculpted a huge bee to draw attention to the plight of bees and the BeeAlive project.

By Gundula Miethke

Every year Rotaract clubs throughout Germany look for a common initiative to participate in on a country-wide basis to demonstrate their commitment to social action. This effort includes hands-on activities, lectures, and public awareness around a single issue. This year, that issue centered on an environmental theme, protecting wild bees.

A Swiss documentary “More than Honey” left a lasting impression on one Rotaractor, who convinced other Rotaract and Rotary members about the menacing problem that these little superheroes find themselves in, one that impacts us as humans as well. The hard-working wild bees are responsible for pollinating more than 75 percent of our crops and wild plants. If they die out, we cannot survive either. Continue reading →

What’s all the buzz about bees?

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German Rotaractors build hotels for wild bees as part of the BeeAlive project.

By Henrik Thiele, a member of the Rotaract Club of Paderborn, Germany, and president of the Rotaract Germany Committee 

Recently, Rotaract clubs throughout Germany were looking for a signature project and decided to concentrate on the environment. After watching a Swiss documentary on bees, “More than honey,” one Rotaractor became passionate about focusing our attention on protecting these little superheroes. Did you know, for instance, that wild bees are responsible for pollinating more than 80 percent of our crops and wild plants? We can’t survive without them. Continue reading →

Climate change and The Four-Way Test

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Rick Olson and children

Rick Olson visits with children in Tanzania.

By Rick Olson, Rotary Club of Prior Lake, Minnesota, USA

Climate change is an impersonal, ambiguous term, which denotes negative impact on people around the world. But on a recent trip to Tanzania in Africa I met some of the innocents who will be most affected by the increased droughts caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Continue reading →