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What are you doing every Saturday morning? There are some people, including University students, professors and even children, who wake up at 6am and go to clean the beaches every Saturday, early in the morning.

Today, I would like to introduce to you a meaningful project called Trash Hero, which is developed by a professor who teaches at the Faculty of Rubber and Polymer Science Technology in the University. This project aims at creating sustainable and community-based projects that remove existing waste and reduce future waste by inspiring long-term behavior change.

First, we will collect the trash from the beaches and then separate them into different categories, such as plastic bottles, plastic bottle lids, glass bottles, lighters and old slippers. We send the plastic bottle lids and old slippers to the lab of the university to make new slippers. This project can educate the public about creation care and make them aware of the problem of plastic pollution, when Thailand generates almost 2 million tons of plastic waste each year. Sometimes, there will be some special events, like collecting the trash during a marathon and zero waste camping, where so many like-minded people can gather and have a good time sharing.

The project also has some funding to hire some local people to help making the slippers, so this project can help the local people to get a job opportunity. I hope that, not only are the products are sold to different parts of Thailand, but also the value behind the project can be spread out.