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Published on December 2, 2007

Khatimah views children as the main victims and in an effort to make them aware of their enemy has designed a kid-friendly puppet show that is much in demand by kindergartens and schools in his native Ketapang, West Kalimantan.

"The environment can be a common ground, a meeting point for talks between North and South Korean people," says Hyun-Joo Oh, 19, a student of politics and economics from Seoul National University. A member of a national youth committee and the national youth council for the reunification of Korea, she has been active in campaigning for bicycle use in Incheon, an industrial city near Seoul. In her view South Korea has put too much emphasis on economic development, ignoring the human sphere. "For the country to develop properly, we need to balance the two."

In South Korea, car ownership averages out at 1.5 per household, which she feels is excessive. "The bicycle is a tool that could be used to encourage South Koreans to enjoy a slower-paced and healthier lifestyle."

A young man with a passion for sustainable development, Moisés Ribeiro Abdou of Brazil's Sao Paulo University, makes good use of recycled tyres and construction waste by incorporating them into intermediate pavement layers. After a resistance study, he found that there is no significant loss of quality if some of the pavement layers are partially made of recycled debris.

"It's cheaper than the stones normally used and for low traffic it's more resistant," says the 22 year old. His project has been implemented over a two-kilometre stretch of Sao Paolo University's new campus and will soon be introduced within the city and other metropolitan areas nearby.

Sasirat Kittichungchit, who's a student at Bangkok's Thammasat University encourages friends to carry personal water bottles brought from home rather than buying a new bottle of water everyday. "If just 100,000 Bangkokians buy a plastic bottle of water a day, that means three million bottles are being tossed into the garbage every month, so you can imagine the amount of waste over a year. And they're non-recyclable," says Sasirat. Prevention, she thinks, is best when it comes to environmental problems.

Francis Richard Villar, 21, of the University of Northeastern Philippines, came up with a creative way of motivating students to dispose of waste properly. A basketball enthusiast, he builds waste bins using recycled materials, copying the basketball hoop and maintaining the same height. His "Slam Dirt" project also encourages people to divide non-biodegradable and biodegradable waste into separate bins. "The project encourages people to see that recycling is not only useful but also enjoyable."

Khatimah, Hyun-Joo, Abdou, Sasirat and Villar are just five of the 50 Bayer Young Environmental Envoys from around the world who were selected to participate in a week-long study trip to the company's headquarters in Germany late last month.

The Young Environmental Envoy Programme, which Bayer started in Asia in 1998 and runs in conjunction with the UN's Environment Programme, is considered one of the most important international environmental education programmes for young people.

In Germany, the youngsters got the chance to exchange ideas. They also visited three operations - the Bayer industrial park in Leverkusen, the North Rhine-Westphalia State Agency for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection and AVEA, a waste processing and disposal facility also in Leverkusen - to experience firsthand different aspects of environmental protection. Here they witnessed processes for waste management, incineration of sewage sludge and wastewater treatment.

"Climate change is at the top of the international agenda and also ours here at Bayer," says Werner Wenning, chairman of Bayer's board.

Between 1990 and 2005, global carbon dioxide emissions increased by 6 billion tonnes to 27 billion tonnes.

"Germany's CO2 emissions fell by more than 6 million tonnes in 2005, meaning that our share of global emissions is now 3 per cent, and falling," says Wenning.

Bayer is one of the world's largest companies, manufacturing more than 6,000 products used in daily life, from Aspirin and fungicides to innovative polyurethane for the new Smart Fortwo car, and owning around 100 production facilities worldwide, including one in Map Ta Phut, Thailand. As such Wenning is the first to admit his company is a major emitter of greenhouse gases and recently announced massive investment in a programme to combat climate change.

Despite successfully decreasing its CO2 emissions by 36 per cent between 1990 and 2006, and being listed as the only German-based company in the chemical sector as "Best in Class" by the Climate Disclosure Leadership Index, the company is aiming to get greenhouse gas emissions by its Material Science division down to 25 per cent per ton of products sold.

The young environmental envoys were introduced to the company's green projects, including a concept for a zero-emission office block known as the EcoCommercial Building, development of stress-tolerant flora, and the exploitation of crops for biofuels.

Bayer's new eco-commercial administrative centre in Greater Noida near New Delhi uses polyurethane insulating material and special ventilation systems and is claimed to consume 70 per cent less electricity than the average building in India. When it's completed next year, its entire energy needs - from electricity to heating to hot water to air-conditioning - will be met through solar power.

InVigor, a high-yield rapeseed variety developed by Bayer researchers and grown in Canada, is believed to produce a 20-per-cent higher yield of biodiesel than any other variety tested. The company is also exploring the potential of bioethanol.

Chainarong Khongsankhum, a Thai student from Phichai School, was amazed by all the innovations, but also the company's sewage sludge incineration system.

"It's really interesting that the white smoke pouring from the incinerator chimneys is only steam with a small amount of CO2, which we've been told is lower than the EU standard. That's because the incinerator temperature is 1,000 degrees Celsius, which reduces chemical residues."

Another Thai student, Krida Uakridathikarn, whose project involves encouraging friends and private companies in his home town in Surat Thani province to use plants to counteract air pollution, is impressed by AVEA, a waste processing and disposal facility.

"The idea of separating rubbish into 32 different types could do so much to save the environment. I think we should do something like this at home."

Aree Chaisatien

The Nation

Cologne, Germany