As the students embarked on their journey for The Earth Prize, they were surprised to discover that South Korea has one of the highest consumptions of plastic cups in the world and that their own school deli jettisons 20,000 cups per year. They knew immediately that this was an issue that needed to be tackled head-on and was perfect for their project. They were eager to examine how they could create and swiftly implement a program that would have immediate impact.

After installing their reusable cup program in the high school, they quickly agreed to study this program’s efficiency to see how they could expand it to schools and companies across South Korea, and then maybe to the rest of the world!

CIECO’s team is made up of 12 students and is represented by Don Yun (David), Daeun (Dana), Chaeyun and Tae Eun. David, who coded the application and website, is in charge of all programming for the group. He is highly motivated by computer science and artificial intelligence, subjects he would like to explore further in his future career. Dana and Tae Eun, who make up CIECO’s marketing team, are the creative minds of the crew. Dana loves anything that involves problem solving, and writes in her spare time. Tae Eun draws, paints and makes origami when she is not in school. Finally, Chaeyun contributes to the project with her specific interest in biology and the environment. She plans to study biomedical engineering after high school.

Since participating in The Earth Prize, the students now think of every subject through the lens of environmental action.They believe that dealing with problems on a local scale can offer solutions that can be perfectly applied on a global scale.