- The pictures below display junk-art structures made by students, designers, and citizens.

1. The recycle tree – The tall black structures that can be seen in the last few uploaded pictures are the [recycle trees]. From far away, they look like trees or simple pieces of artwork, but up close, they are made up of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and milk cans. No designer is needed in the process, because eco-loving students and citizens can do fine without professional oversight. People walking around can hang trash or recyclable canteens to add ?leaves? to the trees. If you look closely, you will be able to see words written on the aluminum cans / milk cartons with black markers.

Every time someone hangs a piece of trash on the tree, he or she must write something down on the ?recyclable leaf? for the environment. Some people write wishes for a better future and prayers for the environment to get better. Others write down their hopes, or more importantly, make small promises to the environment. A young boy wrote down a pledge that he would stop wasting water, and a group of college students promised that they would start reusing paper. The recycle tree is not only a beautiful sculpture or an environmental trashcan, but it is also a place where all dreams come true and all promises are kept.

2. Colored disks & rainbow bottles – Seoul and ICLEI opened a workshop targeted on young children to help design recycle trees, colored disks, and rainbow bottles. These colorful round disks (spread across on the ground) are drawn by students in pre-schools and primary schools of Seoul, South Korea. A great number of eager young initiates participated in the workshop, experiencing the importance of both environment conservation and artistic innovation. Young children and students drew pictures and colored existing ones with crayons, pencils, fountain pens, rainbow markers, ink, pastels, watercolor & poster paint, oil paint........and many other creative art tools in the process.

Many of the pictures carry stories of children living green and a happier Earth. Students were asked to help create artwork that depicted the urgency of climate change and a need for everyday energy conservation. I spotted pictures of trees, clean seas, short cartoons about the environment, tropical fish, and many more on the disks. Each disk had a different theme, because they were all drawn by different children. I also noted that many of the children drew rainbows along with their environmental pictures, which suggested that they were also hoping for a newer, better world where all was peaceful.

In a way, it was sort of depressing because here, in Seoul, I get to see a rainbow?.like once in 5 years. We do not have any stars because of all the smog and air pollution. Our skies are never blue, even on the saddest of days. Not because we are optimistic, but because of pollution. Most of those children who drew the rainbows probably only saw those rainbows in storybooks or on the web. Even some of the older children would have only seen one once or twice. Even though most of them are too young to understand the intangible dangers of climate change, they are aware that something is wrong with the world. What they see of an idealistic, green world that they were asked to draw on disk plates were rainbows. But they didn?t even know how rainbows, stars, blue skies, whales, angel fishes, white clouds, or healthy trees looked like.

For the colorful bottles called rainbow bottles (taped inside with different colors of paper), children wrote down what they would do to save the environment. I will translate a few of them for you: Save the environment / Stop smoking cigarettes / Reduce / Stop throwing away trash / Keep the air clean / Plant trees / Take good care of our planet / Ride bicycles / Do not burn / Stop wasting water / Plug off plugs after using / Recycle / Stop riding cars when unnecessary / Use public transportation / Use LED lightbulbs / Turn off your room lights / I love you environment / Natural / Stop driving and try walking short distances / Life will be easier for us children only when the environment is cleaner / I cannot see any stars in Seoul – please help us see stars / Save electricity! . Stark walking / Throw away well / Reuse / Please make our Seoul cleaner / ?.. /

One rainbow bottle carried a humorous message written by an angry student. It did not have anything to do with the environment, but rather with the education system. I will just write it here for the sake of fun: BAN ENFORCED AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMS!

All things considered, examining the junk-art structures in the Environment Forum was a fresh and memorable experience.