Newspaper

NOVEMBER 2012

COMENIUS

BEYKENT HAS STARTED ECO-SCHOOL PROJECT Edirne Beykent Schools have been carrying out the Eco-School Project since the begining of 2012 – 2013 academic year. Coordinator of the project Miss Karataþ stated that Beykent School has been maintaining this project in order to rise the consciousness of students about environmental issues. Eco teams have been crated and these teams are responsible to organize actions for the environment. They have started to collect waste materials for recycling. Coordinator Karataþ also stated that such kind of social responsibility projects are not only important just for our students but also for the future of our planet.

FOOD MAKES FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC FUN Romanian 'eco artist' Dan Cretu combines his passion for photography with a grocery bag's worth of food to form his unique creations.

'It may sound strange, but I don't think I need inspiration,' Cretu says. 'All objects and things around us daily are possible subjects for me. The challenge is to transform a common object that we don't notice anymore into something unusual, alive and appealing.’

Cretu says his ongoing photo series began two years ago, when having difficulty finding subjects to photograph. He says he randomly opened the fridge and decided to transform oranges into a replica of a bicycle; his first image was created.

'Since then, I can honestly say I don't look at fruits and vegetables the same way I used to,' Cretu says. 'Now, every time I go to the market I spend minutes in front of the fruits and vegetables tables, trying to imagine my next work.’

The Bucharest-based artist hasn't had a gallery exhibition yet, but with fast-growing internet popularity he says 'I don't think one is too far off in the future.’

THE TITLE OF THE NEW COMENIUS PROJECT: ECO&ART March in Italy.

The first meeting of the Comenius project was held in Szendrö in Hungary. It was an amazing meeting thanks to Hungarian partners. All partners (Italy, Poland, Hungary, Turkey and Germany) had a great chance to get to know each other in first meeting.

Edirne Beykent Schools were represented by Principle Bahattin Erel, Önder Gürkaynak, Seçil Bahar Kuru, Bengü Boyacýoðlu and Caner Yýlmaz. We believe that all partners built up a good relationship in first meeting.

The dates of the next activities of the project which are going to be carried out by partners, were decided in the meeting. Partners are going to get together again in

ANIMAL SCULPTURES FROM DISCARDED UTENSILS Japanese artist Sayaka Ganz uses discarded plastic utensils, toys and tidbits to create beautiful animal sculptures. Her plastic sculptures measure from 18 inches to over eight feet in length and can contain up to 500 pieces of junk.

Sayaka Ganz, 34, collects most of her material from

charity shops and dust bins, and the rest is donated by friends and family. She then sorts everything plastic from sunglasses and cutlery to baskets and cooking utensils - into 20 color groups in her basement in Indiana, US. She then ties each plastic junk into a wireframe until it takes the form of an animal in motion.

Her fascination with animals in movement permeates this collection. “When you look at the piece from the distance you see the form of the horse galloping, but when you get up close you start to see

that individual objects were used”, she writes.

Some of her plastic utensil sculptures have sold for $12,000.

WHAT IS RECYCLING? The recycling process involves waste materials being collected, sorted and made into new products and materials. The recycled product will often be the same thing it was before (a glass wine bottle, for example) but can also be "downcycled" into a new product or material (glass can be ground with other materials to make road surfacing).

Is recycling really greener than alternatives like incineration?

Yes. In the case of paper and cardboard, glass, plastics, aluminium and steel, recycling produces fewer greenhouse gases than incineration.

Recycling waste also reduces the amount of methane generated from biodegradable waste - such as cardboard - breaking down in landfill.

Aside from cutting emissions that contribute to global warming, recycling has the benefit of preserving natural resources. Fewer trees need to be cut down, and fewer minerals and metals need to be extracted from mines. Even when a natural resource is renewable if managed sustainably - such as paper harvesting it can still have negative environmental impacts. Forests planted for paper, for example, are often monoculture plantations which are typically much less species-rich than a natural forest.

Why should we bother recycling?

On a practical level, we have to recycle because we're running out of room to bury our rubbish.

The main environmental benefit of recycling is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Manufacturing new products from recycled material rather than new virgin material almost always results in lower CO2 emissions. Making glass, for example, uses 300kg CO2 less per tonne of glass when you recycle old glass rather than using raw materials (because manufacturing virgin glass involves a carbon-intensive furnace process called calcination).

THE CLASSICS RECREATED AS MOSAICS OF NEWSPAPER By wrapping different colored strips of newspaper, magazines, and tissue paper around small pieces of wood, Korean artist Lee Kyu-Hak has found the perfect way to imitate some of the greatest artists of all time.Each colorful tile for his mosaics is placed meticulously to recreate the brushstrokes in famous paintings such as Starry Night, Sand Barges, and Van Gogh's Chair. From afar it is hard to tell that each “stroke” is a three dimensional piece of wood, but up close the details of newspaper text can be seen in some areas.

Lee's mosaics are a fantastic way to use old reading materials and it is amazing how closely each of his works resemble the originals.

PAPERCAHAIR AND PAPERTABLE...

ARE THEY POSSIBLE? The futurist and nature lover Sweedish designer Andrej Mailinin pushes the limits of our minds again. He always manages to look things from a different angle. Because he produced chair and table from waste newspapers with an amazing artistic point of view. The products which were produced by him are not only aesthetic but also durable. Moreover they are much more cheaper than the chairs or tables made of wood or metal. His new project was named as 'Back to Wood' and it seems that new nature friendly products will attract the attention of people gradually. Mailinin also stated that the mate rials which he has used are easy to shape and nature friendly.

IMPORTANCE OF WATER IN OUR LIFE What You Can Do At Home - 5 Simple Things You Can Do 1.Run washing machines & dishwashers only when they're full. Large loads = less water used. And save energy by turning off the auto-dry setting and letting your dishes dry naturally.

2.Keeping a timer in your bathroom will help you take a shorter shower. And please turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth. All that perfectly clean tap water is just going down the drain.

3.Turn off lights and unplug chargers. Water is used in all forms of energy generation. It can take over 4 gallons of water to keep a 60-watt light bulb lit for 12 hours.

4.Use biodegradable cleaning products. The water that goes down your drains will eventually flow into streams and bays.

5.Skip meat for one meal a week. It can take about 600 gallons of water to produce a hamburger. (Think of all the grain that's grown to feed the cattle.)

Online - 5 Simple Things You Can Do 1.Use social media to spread the word about the need to save water and save our water sources. Challenge your friends to match the actions you take.

2.Find out where your water comes from and urge others to do the same. Knowledge is power.

3.Go to the Facebook pages of your favorite brands – clothing, food, etc. – and ask them what they're doing to reduce their water use and their impacts on water sources.

4.Donate to support a community project that helps protect water for people and nature.

5.Help us add more cities to our interactive water source map by doing some online detective work.

Outside - 5 Simple Things You Can Do 1.Plant a tree in your yard or a friend's yard. Trees help keep soil in place – rather than flowing into our streams and lakes – and help slow water down, reducing flooding and enabling more rainwater to trickle down into groundwater supplies.

2.Landscape irrigation is by far the largest source of domestic water uses so consider taking these steps to reduce your impact: * Water your lawn or garden in the morning or the evening when the water will evaporate less rapidly.

Adjust sprinklers to avoid the pointless watering of sidewalks or paved areas. * Sweep patios and sidewalks rather than hosing them, which wastes water and carries contaminants into freshwater systems. * Limit pesticide use. Pesticides are the only substances we intentionally introduce into our environment to kill living things, and besides being potentially dangerous to people, pets and wildlife, they'll eventually be carried into our freshwater supply by runoff.

3.Make sure your hiking gear is free of plant matter when you head out into nature. Seeds of invasive plant species can hitch a ride on boots. Invasive species can cause many water problems, including absorbing more water than native species and sending erosion and bacteria into rivers and lakes.

4.Volunteer for a stream-clean up or wetland restoration event.

5.Take someone on a hike near a river or lake – or better yet, get in or on the water – swimming, kayaking, canoeing, etc. People protect things they care about.

TOP 5 REUSES OF WASTE MATERIALS 1. Inspiring sculptures from tires Korean sculptors used Yong Ho Ji has used waste tires to come up with several inspiring sculptures.

Yong's sculptors have three-dimensional structure representing mutated figures. Yong has used heavy duty tires in his beautifully designed sculptors which

2. Mecier's portraits of celebrities from junk The idea of creating portraits of celebrities from junk is the brainchild of artist Jason Mecier. Mercier has used several waste materials including beans, noodles, pencils and yarn to come up with his masterpieces.

allow you to see the complete anatomy of the animals in a good manner. When looking at one of the sculptors from a distance it appears like a horse and when the same sculptor is looked from a closer distance it appears like a chicken's tail standing on the legs of a cow. Yong has used the tires of motorcycle, bicycle and tractor in his sculptors.

Mecier has made some portraits using lipstick, eyeliner and other beauty products. Mecier is designing these unique artistic items for over a decade now. He has made portraits of several celebrities including US President Barack Obama, Olsen twins, Andy Warhol, Chris Rock, Ru Paul, etc.

5. Detailed sculptures from recycled paper

4. Carpet from cigarette butts

3. House from millions of beer bottles

What do we do with our empty beer bottles?

Throw it in the garbage bin considering it as a useless waste material but Argentina-based artist Tito Ingenieri thinks otherwise. Tito has used the empty beer bottles to build a house.

He spent 19 years to build the house using six million beer bottles. Tito used the bottles donated by neighbors and collected from streets. The beer bottle house is a classic example of putting the waste materials to some use.

Have you ever thought of creating something from cigarette butts? Sounds strange but yes it is true you can actually create beautiful attractive and useful products using cigarette butts. Jesus Bubu Negron has used the cigarette butts to design a carpet. He has used millions of cigarette to create this beautiful carpet. The carper created by this Puerto Rican artist looks similar to a woven carpet. The carpet was first displayed in 2007 at Souq Al-Arsa, Heritage Area. Negron's deserve credit for creating a beautiful item using something which is a completely waste material.

Chilean artist Don Lucho has designed and created detailed sculptures using only recycled paper. The 3D works are created using cardboard. The scenes are created using the cardboard to show average human being's life. Lucho unveiled his beautiful piece of art at the streets of Chilean capital Santiago. Lucho has used the recycled paper brilliantly to illustrate fallen aircrafts, interiors of the house, etc. Lucho has taken care of the details perfectly. Lucho's creation is definitely an attractive piece of art and it shows that waste materials can be used artistically to create something beautiful and unique.

ECO&ART COMENIUS PROJECT PERFORMANCE IS IN FULL FLOW IN BEYKENT Beykent students are very enthusiastic to participate in Eco&Art project. The theme of the project really attracts the attention of the students who are quite sensitive about environmental issues. Students have already started to collect waste materials and also have started designing by using their creativity. Project team

has been designing new products with pleasure for the exhibition that is going to be organized in February.

Students are also aware of the fact that these activities not only increase their creativity but also sense and sensibility about environmental issues.

COMICS Bol & Bol & Environment

Š Katrien Vander Straeten

www.peanizles.com

Š DON MATHIAS