Category: Projects

As an 11-year-old, I organized a plastic bottle & can drive at my elementary school, which remains the most remarkable experience I’ve ever had. The 2-week drive ended with over 100 bags, and around five thousand bottles and cans. Earlier today I found all of its files in my Google Drive and I’ve decided to reflect on it by writing this blog post.

It began with a take-action project in my class, where each student was tasked with creating something that could make a positive impact in the world. At first, I debated between following the conventional path of writing an article or creating a slideshow like every other boring student.

However, everything changed during one of our project workdays during a conversation with a classmate named Jonathan. He proposed the idea of organizing a schoolwide event to support Puplandia, a dog rescue service in the suburbs of Portland. I thought it was a great idea. Fortunately for me, Jonathan doubted his ability to execute the event, and by the end of that day, he had decided to become one of the 27 boring students in my class.

In the following days, I reflected extensively on Jonathan’s project and made the bold decision to take action myself. With limited research, I chose to focus on collecting plastic bottles and cans since I knew that returning them to BottleDrop would yield money in rewards.

Lucky for me, my Spanish teacher Mrs. Janssen was already involved with Puplandia. And she was the one who informed me that there was already a partnership between BottleDrop and Puplandia. This revelation further strengthened my belief that I was on the right track.

After weeks of planning and collaboration with Dr. Marsh (school principal) and Mrs. Janssen, the date was set for my solo speech at a schoolwide assembly. Thanks to thorough preparation and an engaging slideshow, the speech resonated with the students, prompting them to go home and urge their parents to gather all their bottles and cans.

Within a few days, a high percentage of students had already surpassed the goal of collecting their eight bottles. However, progress slowed down as some students who lacked interest failed to follow up or discuss the assembly with their parents. To boost our collection, my sister and I took it upon ourselves to distribute bags throughout our neighborhood, encouraging people to fill them with their plastic bottles and cans.

The campaign turned out to be a resounding success. I was astounded by the sheer number of old Coke cans people had stored in their homes when I went to collect them. Many families had hundreds of soda cans that had been sitting in their garages, and they were finally cleared out, all in support of the noble cause of Puplandia.

When everything was said and done, the plastic bottle and can drive concluded with over 100 full blue bags that were sent to BottleDrop. To put this achievement into perspective, it takes three blue bags to provide necessary vaccines for a dog and twenty blue bags to cover the cost of a neuter procedure.

Considering the relatively short duration and scale of the bottle drive, I consider it a great success. Not only did the drive help the environment and dogs, but it also gave me the confidence to “be different” and do things that other people are embarrassed to do. It improved my public speaking, which became one of my biggest strengths. And it taught me how to be a leader and encourage my peers to do their part. Making the decision to actually follow the name of my 5th-grade assignment and “take action” was undoubtedly one of the best choices I have ever made.