Bright spark: Teenager puts ideas into action with paper recycling initiative
Ike Park has won over about 30 Hong Kong schools to his scheme and business groups such as the British Chamber of Commerce have offered support
When Ike Park took part in a leadership workshop in 2013, he had no idea he would become an environmental advocate with his own not-for-profit organisation.
The workshop, held by Nature Conservancy, ended with a task for the teams to carry out an action, and Park’s team decided to go tree planting.
After hitting walls in their attempts to even just find a site for the planting, then realising how many hands it required to plant a few trees, Park thought: “There must be a more effective way of going about this. How about saving trees from being cut down in the first place?”
Thus began his mission to get schools to switch from virgin copy paper to recycled paper.
Park, 18, speaks with an air of confidence unusual for a teenager. Explaining the business model for his organisation, Project O2, he says: “Since cost is the main problem with recycled paper, if I could gather enough demand, I would have leverage to bargain with suppliers for a lower price.”