如何在島上用保特瓶蓋一顆樹 (序)

麻繩:
X 不易固定緊密，長時間置於室外強風環境下易摩損斷裂
O 易回收分解，對環境影響最小。

尼龍(Nylon)束帶:
O 可緊密固定瓶身，達到理想結構強度。裝卸容易及耐久性足夠。
X 不易分解，可回收，但經濟價值低，故很少回收站願意回收處理。

下面是James在創作過程中所紀錄的創作日誌，希望大家持續關注我們的進度，並且能一同支援我們的這趟遠征! 藉著這些活動，我們希望能喚醒當地社群的環保意識。刺激大人小孩一同進行思辯、並起身行動，同時也希望能尋找一個有效的方法讓當地社群有力量及工具保護並美化自己的土地。

“How To” Guide – A Plastic Bottle Tree for an Island

This year our Santa Jia Xin Winter Solstice is expanding to Taitung and Orchid Island and we’re so excited to be able to fulfill Jia-Xin’s wish to spread warmth and generosity throughout Taiwan. As we are gearing up for our Orchid Island trip and since the middle of September, James and Peter have been racking their brain. Throughout the entire process for our annual year end celebrations, we hope in addition to our plant-based meals to move towards more environmentally friendly workshops.

“After receiving an invitation to Orchid Island with Lan En Cultural and Educational Foundation’s wish for a Christmas Tree, we began to research the resources that were available to us. One of main issues plaguing the island concerns the amount of garbage that needs to be sorted and recycling.

Thus, after assessing which type of material that could be upcycled into an one-story high Christmas Tree, Peter and James decided to collect recycled plastic bottles and finding a way to build a self-standing bottle tree.”

James Teng

The purpose of the Christmas tree is that it can be enjoyed by the community as reflection of Santa Jia-Xin’s wish to spread warmth and holiday cheers to Taiwan every year. Along with our belief in attempt to minimize negative impact we will be using plastic bottles that are found on Orchid Island itself. Since September our teachers have worked very hard to create a tree that is stable and have encountered the following issue on an environmentally friendly binding material we would like to ask community and expert input for, preferably by early the end of this week (11/6 ?) as we are leaving shortly.

* As we hope to use the PET bottles as main constructing materials and add as little construction material as possible, we aimed to connect the bottles with minimum binding materials to form a stable self-standing structure. We hope that you can support our journey! Through this we hope to highlight an environmental issue to draw debate, resolution, and in the meantime find a way to create and empower the community to beautify their surroundings.

ROPE:
O Easy to recycle and degrade, smallest impact for the environment.
X Difficult to tie and hold the bottles tight enough.
Easy to break as the trees will be put in a windy outdoor environment.

PLASTIC ZIP TIES:
O Ideal structural strength and durability, easy to hold the bottles tight enough.
X Difficult to degrade，very few recycling station accepts it cause of low economic value.