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You messed up my room and now you expect me to clean it up
November 2010
This is what a young secondary school student retorted to the question asked by the CEO of a large waste company:
“Waste is a major issue facing your generation – have you thought about what you are going to do about it?”
This debate occurred at a youth leadership programme on sustainable practice that I attended.
This same young female student asked the CEO to repeat the question to make sure everyone heard the statement. The CEO indicated to me that he thought he was in trouble (nervous laughter).
The student then indicated that she would respond first describing how she felt.Second she would respond by describing what she thought youth should do about it.
The CEO leaned over to me at this point and indicated he was in “big trouble” (a big sigh but followed by positive encouragement for the young student to continue).
The young student learnt during the leadership week about what should happen. We need to address the real problem (the amount of waste we create through packaging and use of energy intensive resources) rather than the symptom (more recycling and purchasing products we cannot reuse).
To the credit of the CEO he clapped the young student and indicated he had just been given a lesson on how WE can make a difference.
This was OUR problem, and indicated that his generation had created the waste culture and he was keen to work with creative young people, like the young student, tomake a difference through behaviour change.
As he left the room he said he had learnt that “connecting your head with your heart and your hands is how you make a difference and create behaviour change”.
Did you know that many young people globally are demonstrating more concernabout the physical and social environment in which they live than the generations before them?
Image credit: Children Today