Polyus sponsored the second Regional school ecological competition in Krasnoyarsk.
12,500 school pupils entered the competition in three categories. The “Natural Resources conservation” category encouraged children to learn how to treat domestic waste and start recycling, by collecting waste paper and plastic. Under the “Eco-director” category, contestants wrote blogs and produced short videos (from 2 to 4 mins) on sensitive environmental subjects, using various genres and techniques. The third category, “Green country” was a contest between schools, whose students helped to plant tree saplings in Krasnoyarsk’s parks.
The award ceremony for winners was held on the sidelines of the Yenissey environmental forum. It was attended by Nikita Smirnov, GR director in Polyus Krasnoyarsk. Before presenting the winners with their prizes, he addressed the school students.
“Everyone who came here and who was part of this has already won. You followed your ambition when you entered the competition, which is a great thing!”
We found that young people have an elevated environmental consciousness. In the Krasnoyarsk region, students from the Chastoostrovskoye school in the Emelyanivsky district collected almost three tonnes of paper waste. A further example of excellent performance was demonstrated by Gymnasium 131, whose students collected 412 kg of plastic waste for recycling. 40 video clips were entered into the Eco-director award, making it hard for the judges to select the best ones. Eventually, Lyceum 7 (Save your planet), Minussinsk boarding school (Smogging Bad) and school 39 (Afterlife of dead batteries) hit the podium. The clear frontrunners of the Green country category were the pupils from Nazarovo school 3, who established a school forestry. They planted 195 tree saplings and sewed 10 kg of the Siberian pine.
Polyus has now supported the environmental competition for the second year in a row. This project is part of the corporate campaign for a healthy environment in its regions of operations.
Nikita Smirnov commented:“This work is connected to industrial health and safety as well as environmental protection, as it ranges from releasing baby fish to using advanced drones to monitor our facilities. We are changing together with the world. 20 years ago, many would have seen no point to the topics we are now discussing. However, they are on the global agenda now. Pro-environmental public initiatives are evolving, which is a good thing. The extent of people’s activism impacts the air we breathe, the society we live in, what happens around us. Young people care, and that is what matters. After all, using natural resources responsibly demonstrates your respect for the world and for those around you.”
The environmental competition included a quiz, with Polyus sponsoring the awards. A total of 85 school pupils answered questions of various complexity requiring general knowledge and logic.