Sustainability Adventure Brochure

Recently AJ has become obsessed with buying electronics again, even tinkering with her phone at the dinner table in the morning and quickly ordering a new Apple watch.

“If you want to keep from being late for school, hurry up and eat.” AJ’s father looked at her and said slowly.

“I know, I downloaded some amazing software into my watch yesterday! Supposedly it can alert us to sustainable problems in the world at any time!” With that, AJ held up her hand and showed her dad the watch on her wrist, and sure enough, the watch starts talking, “You know what! The young people of generation have solved the problem of hunger, if we seriously confront the world’s environmental problems! We can then be the first generation to solve the environment!”

AJ nodded in satisfaction as AJ’s dad glanced at her watch and looked back down at the paper, “That would be best, but you’d better get to school soon.”

“OK Dad!” said AJ as she quickly finished fixing breakfast and headed out the door to school.

On the way to school, AJ passed a second-hand electronics shop that sold them at a discount, and in the side alley came the sound of lock-picking, AJ looked inside curiously and timidly and found a man with a hat picking up discarded electronics from the trash.

“A good citizen, he knows how harmful discarded electronics are to the environment! So, he’s recycling them!”

AJ frowned at the watch and said, “Are you sure he’s recycling? He’s stealing, no, we’ll catch up with him and see what he’s up to.”

AJ picked up her pace and followed the mystery man.

After crossing several alleys, AJ followed him to a rubbish collection station in the harbor where the mystery man gave his bag to the staff as soon as he could, and the staff expertly began to count the electronics in the bag.

“See I told you he was a good citizen! He’s just recycling!” The watch started talking again.

AJ is confused why picking up trash become recycling, the watch began to talk eloquently, “many people will sell their discarded electronic products, there are many recycling factories will buy, and then through the physical crushing of some valuable metal sorting and separation out, the different materials metal to do recycling. A tonne of mobile phones contains 100 times more gold than a tonne of gold ore. AUN report states that the value of gold, platinum and other precious metals discarded with e-waste is conservatively estimated at over $10 billion every year!”

“Really! So valuable!” AJ said in amazement and the next second AJ was ready to dive into the boat that it takes the rubbish away, watch hastily tried to stop him, “You’re late for school!”

AJ smoothed her hair and smiled, “Sometimes exploring is a learning experience! We need to know what the hell they’re doing!”

AJ quickly boarded the boat while the crowd was busy and then found a more isolated room to hide in. AJ had to wonder how big the boat really was.

After a long time, AJ woke up in a daze to the sound of voices at the door, and when she looked at the time, she was ten hours late for school! AJ poked her head out of the window and found herself in the middle of the vast ocean with many fishing boats around her, AJ was pleasantly surprised, after all she had never seen so many fishing boats and fishermen before.

At this point the watch spoke again, “The environmental problem of marine pollution has been around for a long time, the plastic rubbish put into the ocean has caused many fishermen’s harvests to be greatly reduced, and has caused a large number of marine animals to die by accidentally eating the plastic, what you see now is basically a large corporate fishery, most of the local private fisheries have retired, the depletion of marine resources have brought all the major fisheries hit hard.”

Looking around at the children on the local fisheries, AJ sighed and bowed her head, “Surely we’re still causing too much rubbish.”

Not knowing how long the boat had been travelling, and seeing that it was about to dock, AJ immediately got up and climbed into one of the containers that were about to be transported away, and then leapt into a van full of electronics, and as the van bounced around, AJ made her way to an oversized factory, full of towering chimneys and black smoke.

In order to get inside, AJ sneaked into the changing room and changed into the factory staff’s overalls. AJ was worried that she would be discovered as a young girl, but the watch said, “Well, you don’t have to worry, the poorest people in every country are usually gathered in the factories, and there are 62 million girls under 16 working here. The reason for this is that women are always considered to be easy to control, so they usually have a lot of work but low pay.”

AJ was a little frightened but was pushed into the workplace by the crowd, apparently unskilled in this type of line work and breaking an apparatus every few minutes, the factory owner was furious and tried to give AJ a ‘good’ scolding.

AJ felt bad and immediately blended into the crowd, the boss soon lost her as everyone was wearing the same overalls. AJ caught her breath and climbed the stairs along the way. Around the corner she heard the factory manager explaining to the delivery man to be careful with the package, which was for the most important customer.

AJ’s heart was racing, was I about to catch the man behind the curtain! So, AJ took advantage of the manager’s departure and immediately ducked into the package that was billed as being for the most important customer. The parcel moved forward with the pipe and was eventually transported to the courier van, apparently the courier did not treat the parcel gently and AJ was sore from the ‘smashing’. AJ had no idea how long he had been asleep when she heard a familiar doorbell and the dragging sound of the parcel being pushed through the door. AJ seized the opportunity and immediately stood up from the parcel shouting, “Yes! Finally, I’ve got you! The man behind the curtain!” AJ took a closer look and trying to get a good look at the other man’s face, but she realized that the man opposite her looked a little familiar, is this my dad! Before AJ could say anything, her dad said,

“It’s you, this package is yours.”

AJ looked down and sure enough it contained the Apple watch she had purchased before the adventure, “That was quick.” AJ exclaimed, and the next second AJ immediately switched to the new watch and started to study the settings inside.

A few days later.

“You know what! The young people of generation have solved the problem of hunger, and if we seriously confront the world’s environmental problems! We can be the first generation to solve the environment!”

“OMG, why does it keep talking, it’s rare to find a working piece of electronics” said a man looking down at a broken watch on his hand.