A 71-year-old girl and her grandson on the road together to find the proximity

SINGAPORE: Mildred Chong and her granddaughter Emma Yoon lived together and were very close. But when Emma turned six, her family moved. And once the girl went to school, everything changed, lamented Mdm Chong.

"Sometimes I went to her house, and she was either on the laptop or in her room doing her job. We just said hello and asked, 'Had lunch?' That's all, "said the former staff sergeant of 71.

" I sometimes feel lonely because I'm far away from them . It's rather sad. I missed it. "

Not only was there less connection, but also little common ground. [19659002] Emma, ​​now 15, is an avid ecologist who ripped meat and abandoned single-use plastics, while her grandmother's first thought on the issue is that waste reduction is "embarrassing" and recycling is a problem time wasted

"There is a generation gap between me and Emma. She likes … to save the Earth and all that, "admitted Mdm Chong. "But our generation does not do that kind of thing … I would just throw (waste) in the plastic bag and go down the chute."

Having resisted any attempt to make it live a greener life, what would it take to bring them closer now?

That was the challenge Emma and she had to face when they had to work together on the On The Red Dot program, in a series of about four pairs of grandmothers and grandchildren. teenagers hoped to fill their generational gap.

It meant facing their different attitudes, trying to find a common goal and making discoveries of each other. (Watch the episode here.)

A GREAT CHALLENGE

In the case of Emma, ​​one thing she was determined to change was the style his grandmother's non-green life, that is why she embarked Mdm Chong "

This implied that each of them had to limit his waste over a period of seven days to the next day. insert into a 500 ml glass jar, the teenager being inspired by the zero waste movement that she saw on YouTube.

She brings a lunch box and reusable cutlery to the school and has a recycling area at home where she encourages her family to do her part. So, she already sees such actions as a duty.

But even addressing the subject with Mdm Chong, on the other hand, was not easy. "How can all the waste get into the pot? Seven days is a lot," she said, "why do we do that?"

Seeing that there was so much mess to make one "[19659002] But she found a solution: Singapore's first insect farm, Insectta, where black fly larvae are used to break up discarded food. . And the next day she took her grandmother to Margaret Drive's farm.

At first, Mdm Chong found the scary maggots. But then she was intrigued, wondering why the food waste that they ate was not smelly (they eat it before it breaks down), and how long it takes to become compost ( two weeks).

She also asked Ng Jia Quan, 29, co-founder of Insectta, why he started in this business to "his very young age "(because, he says, food waste is a" very big problem "). And she realized that pigs were receiving food waste when Singapore had hog farms, while the younger generation let the insects do the work right now.

Another thing she's learned is that the larvae can feed on okara – soy bean residues – which caught her attention because she regularly helps the bean shop soybean of his son-in-law.

"We have been throwing it for at least 10 years," she said. "If you want, you can come and collect it."

A GROWTH REALIZATION

And so began his gradual awakening . When she met Emma the next day, she said, "Thankfully, we managed to recycle our food waste yesterday."

While her granddaughter recognized her receptivity to the issue as a "good step forward," wanted to do: Wean off single-use plastics. And looking at Mdm Chong's pot, she saw two straws.

"It's a lot of straws in such a short time," she remarked. "Perhaps you should consider using fewer straws … because they can not be recycled."

As part of her action plan, she had decided to take his grandmother to Unpackt, Sembawang Hills Estate's first zero-waste grocery store.

It meant bringing their own containers. And when Mdm Chong bought soy sauce, she was surprised that she only costs 45 cents, because the store's food is sold by weight, without packaging.

Emma was quick to point this out, saying, "See, so there are the positives of not using packaging."

Her grandmother was reminded of the past once more. She said:

A store like this is very interesting to me. It's like going back to the old days, when we bought things using our own containers.

She again asked the company's co-founder, Florence Tay, 36, why she was working in this field.

The answer – that packaging ends up as a waste and that "what we leave to the next generation is not wealth and health, but plastic pollution for them" – l & # 39;

Emma asked if she thought the waste issue was still not her problem, to which she said, "Now, I understand." A little.

What she also realized, is that young people like her granddaughter were really concerned about the state of the environment.

NEGLECTED, AND APPRECIATED AGAIN

For Emma made a discovery of her own after their visit. When she asked her grandmother how it had unfolded the garbage-free week, Mdm Chong said, "I'm happy because I've had the opportunity to spend some time there." with you. "

" That's why I took up the challenge. We used to have time together … Nowadays, sometimes I do not even see you. "

This" really touched "the teenager, who had" no idea "that her Grandmother felt neglected. "She never shared these feelings with me," said Emma, ​​who tried to reciprocate by expressing her happiness at Mdm Chong's receptivity to the challenge.

"You strive to learn and you ask very good questions," she tells him. "What matters is that you have tried."

The week was not over yet and on the fifth day they went to the Love Life Carnival, which aimed to teach visitors how to live a sustainable life. [19659067] (dp) OTRD generation gap green 4 “/>