Responsibility
Bayer Young Environmental Envoys
Featured in this Report are the projects of some of the young people who visited Germany in 2005 as part of Bayer’s Young Environmental Envoy program. This is one of many activities that we organize jointly with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in the area of youth and the environment. In November 2005 we invited 45 Young Environmental Envoys from 14 countries to Leverkusen for a mutual exchange of experience. The photos that are found between the different sections of this Report were taken during this trip. You will find more information about the Bayer Young Environmental Envoys and the partnership with UNEP here 
and on the Internet at http://www.unep.bayer.de/
and on the Internet at http://www.unep.bayer.de/;)
Rahima Indira Hanifa, Indonesia, in front of Group headquarters in Leverkusen
In 2005 a huge garbage dump in the City of Bandung in West Java crashed down like an avalanche, killing many people with it. The accident was the result of a huge population explosion, rising waste volumes and inadequate regulation of waste management. Rahima Indira Hanifa, who studies environmental technology in Bandung (Indonesia), has taken up this problem and developed concepts for improved waste management control: “I would like to help bring the issue of sustainability to the top of the political agenda here.”
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Erwina Tobing in front of the waste incinerator in Leverkusen-Bürrig
Erwina Tobing, a student of Padjadjaran University in Bandung (Indonesia), is concerned with recycling her city’s organic waste. “Domestic garbage is a valuable resource that we should reutilize. If organic waste is turned into compost with the help of worms, it can act as a natural fertilizer for plants.” With the concept she has developed, Erwina wants to use natural mechanisms to facilitate recycling and thereby reduce waste volumes.
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Cristiano Menezes from Brazil in front of the Institute for Plant Diseases in Monheim
The “Triangulo Mineiro” region of Brazil is one of the areas hardest hit by exhaustive cultivation. In order to provide cattle herds with sufficient grazing land, enormous forest areas are cleared. This in turn is shrinking the habitat for the stingless bee that lives in these forests. Cristiano Menezes works on behalf of this valuable insect, on the existence of which various indigenous plants also depend. He has collected hundreds of signatures in support of saving the forest areas of the Triangulo Mineiro and has since turned this list over to the Brazilian government. Cristiano is optimistic: “Maybe the stingless bee will soon once again have a future in the rain forests of Brazil.”
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Yazmin Cobos in front of the wastewater treatment plant in Leverkusen-Bürrig
In Colombia, the production of alcohol generates heavily polluted effluent containing large quantities of organic material and salts. It has a very low pH. Yazmin Cobos has been working for some time on the treatment of this effluent by anaerobic fermentation (biological treatment) to decontaminate the water and utilize the resultant biogas as an alternative energy source. The composition of this wastewater after treatment is such that it can be used as a fertilizer. “The aim of my work is to conserve water resources and find new alternatives in energy production.”
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George Muchina Nguri from Kenya in front of the hazardous waste incinerator in Dormagen
George Muchina Nguri is convinced that sports improve environmental protection, which is why he is involved in the Green Space Project of the Mazingira Club in north-eastern Kenya. By playing sports together, young people learn to overcome indifference and selfishness and to behave with a social conscience. “This is the most important precondition for recognizing that our environment is a valuable resource that we must all work together to protect. The team spirit that sports inspire in these young people from the poorest regions of Kenya helps them to believe in their dreams, and to fight for the preservation of an environment in which these dreams can actually become true.”
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Dorota Banaś from Poland in a greenhouse belonging to the crop protection research facilities in Monheim
“The student dormitory at the Maritime University in Gdynia could be powered largely by solar energy,” says Dorota Banaś, a dedicated climate protection activist. With her graduate thesis at this Polish university therefore, she has impressively demonstrated how it pays to lastingly break the dependence on fossil fuels and embrace new sources of energy. To this end, Dorota examined the cost-effectiveness of solar cells on the roofs of buildings and then tried out her ideas in field tests conducted on the university campus, thus making a contribution to the evolution of regenerative energy technologies.
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Jung-Ho Jung in front of the waste recycling unit in Leverkusen-Bürrig
Measuring over 400 square kilometers, Saemangeum in Korea is the second largest tidal flat in the world. Here, migratory birds hurtle past on their way from Asia to Australia, the area itself protects the inhabitants of the coastal region from storm surges and the silt acts as a natural filter, cleaning polluted water. The South Korean government is planning to dry up the tidal flat to use it for agricultural purposes. Jung-Ho Jung, a member of a non-governmental organization, is lobbying for the conservation of this valuable habitat: “We must preserve this natural area to maintain an ecological balance in the region and protect the population.”
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