To be honest, this is an unexpected adventure.

The story of BNDS Blue Cogiator starts from a lunch with our principal and a proposal once intended for our school to implement as a part of its infrastructure. I vaguely remember that it was the second day of my 13th birthday. Looking back three years later, this might be the best birthday gift ever. :D

The proposal was to establish a paper recycling system on campus, including one-side used paper, double-side used paper, recycled paper, draft paper... We have the recycling boxes dispersed throughout campus, those collected were sold, and the money earned traded for recycled paper used in daily matter. Under crude estimation, paper in our school emit one sixth of carbon of what it would have, had we not establish this recycling system. In primary school, the pattern of extracurricular activities that I was familiar with was simple: tell a teacher about your ideas, and they will help and instruct you to put them into practice. However, Our principal and Mr.Lin Sen inspired me to choose a completely different path: to found a club and realize this idea by myself!

Our dream team

Then, the fellowship of Cogiator was founded. It was a team of three middle school students, but it was already sufficient for this dream to take off.

I made a phone call with Xu Ming(Gloria) and Li Chengfei(Johnny) that night. All I did was to explain my ideas, but they took the responsibility and regard this as OUR dream from then on. In that June, every moment we had went to the pursuit of our dream. Lunch skipped, sleep forfeited, and, for the first and only time in my life, cell phone plan used up, in exchange for discussions and development of the products that we were to sell on “Red Window Fair”, where we eventually won the seventh place out of scores of sellers.
It's hard to imagine that we had only been a team for less than a month at that time, and did not even register on

BNDS platform. The decision to participate in “Red Window Fair” was just a flash of light. In that month, we have made tons of efforts to design our posters, create an Wechat public account, post basic information of our club on that public account, design and make our products, make waste paper recycling boxes, and implement that around the campus. A year thereafter, I could not but be moved by the strongest, most inspiring enthusiasm, unhindered, bursting into actions.

Quoting a sentence I posted on Wechat moment at that time "it was you guys who turned the dream that I hesitated to move forward into reality."

For me, at the beginning, this small but united team is everything.

One must heed to history

A great treasure was the outpouring of help and support from earlier students and our teachers for a student in only seventh grade wanting to start a club. I deemed it then as something ought to be, not an act of choice, perhaps due to the tremendous amount of compliments and attention.

There had been an earlier student who warned me against promising before doing, who advised me to learn from other clubs, who recommended WeChat of other environmentalist clubs leaders, who discuss with me the experience and meaning behind our work, and who is willing for cooperation and daring in innovations with me. There were teachers who taught me the essentiality of attempts in spite of anything else, and experience of people before paved for us shorter paths. Some of these words of guidance became the least influential to my actions, for my imprudence obscures me from their impact. Standing on a clearer vantage point from the present to the past, every setbacks seemed to have been where those guidance were ignored.

Hence heed to history, for they were paths beaten by the toils and tears of people before.

Wealth accumulated by clubs before

Amongst the wealth passed on by clubs before, not merely guidance, there were also resources and ideas. The resources Fight and Fly club left behind after graduation came into the possession of BNDS Blue Cogiator, whom regarded as both great opportunity and somewhat an honor the building upon their recycling system, and starting an initiative for research for environmental protection, having been inspired by their mathematical approach to this problem. These opportunities were rare, yet easy to obtain, and simultaneously easily wasted, we however were privileged to have made the most use of them.

Plan P, from BNDS to beyond

I have come to know many students from other schools, devoted in dreams and bold in actions, whom, giving kind assistance and support to all of us, wrote our recycling system into a proposal and establish the Plan P alliance. At present, students from other schools are recycling waste paper with us, creating a broader impact to our society and furthering our reach to the ultimate goal. Social organizations and associations are recognizing Plan P. We have won the first batch of volunteer service demonstration projects for middle school students in China, which was an honor, awarded by Chinese Young Volunteers Association and Communist Youth League of China, to only fifty social outreach programs in China. The significance of Plan P is that, not unlike what most of us can do ourselves, insignificance are accumulated to create significance. Should one day the majority of schools in Beijing or even China devote itself to such noble cause, and reduce carbon emission and water pollution henceforth, it would be a thing most momentous. Students’ permanent awareness with regard to the environment will also be of great social momentousness.

With no regard to the outcome, the process of building club is meaning enough

Thus is my final advice. I hence pass to you as I have once received some. Ideas and passions are the only justification needed for the pursuit of your dreams. The brightest roses accompany the sharpest thorns. To devote my high school years into a cause I believe as firmly shall never be a regret of my entire life.

Written by Lou Hanzhi, Class of 2024