A story of Trash
so since i was asked to share my story
i’m gonna ask i’m gonna start since i
was at the age of 10.
don’t worry it will only take an hour
so um let me ask you a question first
how many of you follow a sport
nobody all right oh i can see some hands
great
how many of you follow i mean you
follow the same spot since you were a
child
do i see hands i see some hands wow
great all right you should have been
speaking maybe in a different tedx team
but i have to say i was never good at
sports
their only attempt i did was when i was
10 years old
and i did it because i had the need to
belong somewhere
and there was a cycling team running in
my hometown
which i decided to join and i did join
at 10 and i tried really hard to become
a professional and for two years the
best position i got
was the second before the last so my
career ended up quite quickly
but what really fascinated me that using
a bicycle
this simple creation can take you to
places
and it wasn’t until 2013 when this idea
came to my mind again
it’s funny how some things stick to your
mind sometimes
i was living in scotland and i used to
hang out a lot
at the radio center i find that this
place
extraordinary some people didn’t needed
something so they
used to take it there and some others
find it useful
simple as that so one day i visited this
place and i found these bicycles
old bicycle frames lying around and i
had
this idea
i’m gonna build a bicycle by myself
and write it back to cyprus
and so i did people thought i was crazy
even i thought i was going mad
i was i adopted myself quite a lot and
but something inside me felt right
and made me unstoppable
so i started alone and the first thing i
learned was
how dependent we are from nature
the weather and the natural landscape
defined the root of my journey but being
a traveler as well i had to camp
everywhere i wanted to stay at night so
i find out that cities was not a livable
place
the second lesson i learned that being
alone is never fun
a month after i started janice joined
along
and three months after i studied
dimitris joined along as well
and there we collectively we
collectively learned the third lesson
that we could never have made it if we
couldn’t have the support and good will
of others
and that is true on purple you can see
the roots since um i started in scotland
ending up in cyprus
this journey lasted for four months and
coming back to cyprus was never easy
actually i tried to follow the norm
finding a job
building a career but it never felt
right
it wasn’t until 2016 when i found out
about the european union programs
of volunteering for the youth and i
found this opportunity in spain
it was an easy decision i left
everything i quit my job
and i never looked back
so i moved to spain ready to start a new
life and i had two main things
time and a bicycle
so i used to use my bicycle and traveled
to the most remote places in there
i was living and what surprised me
was that even in the most remote places
you could find human traces everywhere
mountains of waste
that was it i had to do something about
it
and it was then when i created the surah
the surah
comes from the spanish words tesoro
which means treasure
in basura which means waste
and nothing will have been possible of
course if i did not have
the support of others so we started
experimenting with the idea a lot
and a good example was this youth center
in valencia
located in roma community and
we were invited together
to work with the people living there and
transform the place
so we collected a lot of things thrown
away and
boom the place was alive again in a
week’s time another good example
was when we visited the local market and
we collected
all the food that was going to be thrown
away in a day
so we managed to feed more than 50
people possibilities were
endless my only problem
was all those things i could find and do
nothing about
so i started experimenting around it and
art installations played an important
role
but making structures out of all these
things
but again it didn’t felt like a solution
plastic was everywhere and i was running
out of ideas
so i thought it was then when i found
out about precious plastic
created by a dutch guy named dave
hawkins
and imagine what he made everything
open sourced he designed machines that
can recycle plastic
everybody could copy them he shared all
the information online
and everybody even you could create
your own small scale recycling facility
brilliant and that was when i decided
i need to come back to cyprus and follow
what i was doing to spain
back here coming to cyprus
i tried to learn a little bit what
happen in our lovely island
so i start to
find out that in order to follow
the european regulation regarding
climate change
and for cyprus to reduce our emissions
according to the green deal we will need
13
times cyprus covered in trees
i wasn’t an expert planting trees so i
try to see
what happens with our waste
so i was shocked once more to find out
that 76
of our waste ends up in landfills
and that was a call for action don’t you
think
i do believe in education and education
plays an important role
in knowing what we do learn today
so i was lucky that i was invited in
schools and i also organized some
workshops for adults
but it didn’t felt enough i wanted to
spread this information
to people that could not be exposed to
this
so i turned locally i tried to see what
happens
in the place where i was living and i
found about this organization
named idaliades it’s formed by retired
and unemployed women gathered every now
and then
and sharing their knowledge and passion
for traditional crafts so we mix our
powers together
and they came out with the idea of
creating bugs
everyday bags using old fabrics they had
at home
and advertising banners
again possibilities were endless
that is another good example the
transformation of a place located
in the old city of nicosia the old
municipal market
it was a proof showing the power of
like-minded people coming together
in few weeks time without even realizing
it
we transform the place from a gray empty
area
to a colorful vibe vibrant place open
for all
and this is where we had our first
physical workshop in cyprus
where we continue working with our
precious plastic machines
and here we are again allow me to show
you what our
precious plastic machines do the first
machine
on the on the left as you can see
shreds plastic by that it makes plastic
raw material again
the other machines can use a plastic
and transform it into everyday useful
items
to design and practical objects
but most importantly it allows us and
gives the possibility
to reimagine our lifestyle
sounds great isn’t it
well it took us four years to get to the
stage where
where we are now as time and money was
always a problem
but we are still going thanks to the
support we receive
every now and then but here we are
almost ready to create our first reuse
facility
or recycling if you prefer where we
invite and we would like to invite you
designers makers local shops
organizations authorities everybody
interested on the topic
to help us build an a network
where we can process waste and make it
into something meaningful
and we are hoping that this plastic
reuse
will only be the beginning we aim to
create a bigger facility
where different kinds of ways can be
processed
as well as collaborate with other
initiatives
where we share the same passion and we
want to achieve solutions
that tackle climate change
an idea that happens abroad but for us
a small island it can be something
where we can contribute and shape our
future
and make this story of trash a story of
treasure
this is where my bike brought me so far
so if i want to leave the stage i want
to say three last things
first will be use your bike as much as
you can
you never know where it can take you
second
whatever you do do it with respect to
nature
and fellow human beings
and last it starts from every single one
of us
sharing it with others but we can
achieve
anything if we work collectively
thank you so much