 Welcome to the monthly news number 49. This is where we recap the news from One Army, our foundation tackling global problems with a worldwide community. Today I'm reporting from Kenya, JAPATI! And I'm here because we'll be going on an expedition on a boat made entirely from plastic waste, but I'll talk a little bit about that later on. So in the monthly news, we are giving the latest updates of the projects we are working on, but we also like to give some to look into what's happening in the world and share some things to check out. And last time, Mathias shared a lot of good book tips and this time I will give you some recommendations to watch. So the first thing I would like to recommend is the documentary Kiss the Ground, which is about regenerative agriculture and is talking about the big role and potential of healthy soil when it comes to CO2 emissions and basically a lot of the problems we have nowadays. And it's really well done and nicely visualized how everything works. And it might make one or the other want to start digging and regenerating the next bit of dirt you can get in your hands. And then there's Kurzgesagt, which is a YouTube channel I've been following for a while now and they are doing explanatory videos about pretty much everything in the world, like science, the cosmos, universe, the environment, human stuff. It's really interesting and what I really like about them is that it's very well researched and illustrated and animated and really compressed in a nutshell, so basically to maximum 10 minutes. So for everyone who wants to learn and maybe even use that as a base for discussions, definitely check it out. And a small tip here, if you're watching online videos, try out reducing the resolution to a smaller one because high-definition videos take a lot of data and with that also cause a lot of CO2 emissions. And the same thing with video calls. So recently there have also been some articles popping up about talking about the impact of video calls and saying that one hour video call results into up to one kilogram of CO2 and 12 liters of water being used for that. And this whole topic about the impact of our digital infrastructure and internet is of course a huge one. But here I'm just gonna share some information and tips you might want to keep in mind. So if you're in a video call, switching off your video can reduce your emissions by 96%. So really try to stick with audio calls if it's not needed to have video. And if you really need the video, try to set to a smaller resolution because for example, a 1080 resolution video has four times as much CO2 emissions than a 720 video and 720 or even 480 is most of the time definitely good enough. And maybe having all of that in mind also consider when you're watching something online if it's really worth watching and emitting those CO2 emissions. Yeah, so if you wanna reduce your emissions right now you can just click here on the settings and see if there is any real resolutions lower than the current one which is still good enough to watch. It's good to keep in mind. It seems like a small thing but it really adds up to a lot. Okay, so let's talk about one army projects. Starting with Project Camp where we are researching and developing solutions to live more sustainably and with a lower or more positive impact on the nature and resources we have around us. We bought this place of land in Portugal and now finally released the video of where we show all the steps we went and how the search went, how we bought it and what we learned on the way. Yeah, and as with all projects we are planning to document and share everything we learn so that other people can learn with us. But as this is more like a long-term project a lot of things will be explored and yeah, observed in a long-term and then after a while only we can actually see what we can learn from that but to be able to capture those moments and stages of the land and the process more Dave started making weekly updates where he shows a little bit more what's going on right now. Cutter, saw and a shovel. So for that we started a new YouTube channel, Project Camp and for everyone who wants to be really part of the very beginnings and part of the process that's the place to go. And this can also be found in the Project Camp Academy and there will be more videos coming soon where we'll explain how we converted a van into a tiny home and put a workspace and town center into a container. So yeah, stay tuned if you want to follow that. And now about the precious plastic team and global recycling community tackling plastic pollution on a local level. Our team has been finalizing the first StarTicket projects and is slowly recapping what we learned from that. And one very interesting thing was and exciting thing was the first online trainings we gave for a project in Saudi Arabia where they got a set of precious plastic machines as part of a program bringing circular solutions closer to the community. Yeah, even though it was a challenge and it's definitely much nicer to be and train in person it was very good for us to see and it made us very happy that we can make it work just we are online so we don't have to travel to all corners of the globe to make those projects happen. And for those StarTickets we also modified the machines in a way that they are designed for disassembly so they can be shipped easier and even the new 1.5 meter sheet press system can be flat packed. Yeah, so there have been a lot of improvements and modifications being made and we are documenting all of that and these two machines can be found in our how-to platform already. So whoever wants to have a look and maybe even build them themselves that's the place to go. All right, community talk. Yeah, I guess one of my favorites is always the how-tos and finally there have been two bicycle shredders how-tos pretty much around the same time one from Jamil where they've been connecting the common plastic shredder to a bicycle and then there is the one from Kunsch of Schmiede which they already made a video about a while ago but they've been using it a lot for their workshops and have been improving a lot so now they made a really, really nice documentation where you can learn how to build it with all their improvements. So thank you very much for that and then there is the flip floppy project from Kenya where they built this boat made entirely from plastic waste and flip flops collected from the beaches. They've used bigger machinery than precious plastic but the techniques they applied and the tests they made and the lessons they learned is something valuable to learn for the whole recycling communities so they compiled all of that information with all the test results for everyone to learn from and the flip floppy project is actually pretty much the reason why I'm in Kenya right now and being part of the flip floppy and the precious plastic project I've been quite involved in the local recycling activities and projects and there's been a lot going on and growing and coming and there is actually also quite some precious plastic stuff going on so I thought I'll just give a little insight of the Kenyan precious plastic ecosystem which I guess started with actually our first precious plastic pilot project in Kisi and one of the team members Manduku he's still super active making those amazing baskets and other things with the extrusion machine and Alicia, the other team member she's now giving a lot of recycling trainings in and around Kenya and she's also managing a new precious plastic workspace precious plastic manyata where they got machines from Plasticpreneur and they're now working there and recycling with a team of five and then there is Plastiki Rafiki which some of you might heard of already before and they started as a student group building the machines but now kind of evolved into the main machine builder of precious plastic machines in Kenya so they built machines for 10 different locations in Kenya already which means that there is a lot more precious plastic workspaces active there now and three of them have been funded and supported by the Flip Floppy which is very active in supporting and pushing the local recycling systems and solutions and one of them is actually here in Diani where I'm right now where they collect plastics and flip flops and but all sorts of waste because they do it as a part of a bigger waste management project and together with Flip Floppy we're actually trying to document all of this and really share the solutions how to set something up like this here in Kenya and what Flip Floppy does here is pretty much what I would envision for a lot of precious plastic community points to do because they are researching in the area and then connecting all the projects and trying to support them in the way they can if it's by trying to get funding for their projects or just by sharing them on media and to do more of that Flip Floppy including me will be going on an expedition around Lake Victoria sailing the boat around the lake to share solutions and connect projects and inspire more people and push more politicians and legislation to work towards a more circular economy so you'll see me over there I'll take a little bit of a precious plastic break but I'll certainly be talking a lot about precious plastic and yeah, there is still obviously a lot of things going on in the one-armed projects precious plastic project and another project actually coming up soon thank you for everyone who is supporting so far it really really helps and keeps us going and for everyone who wants to contribute to all of those projects and if you want to get some badges or early access to articles or be a little bit involved in the things going on behind the scenes yeah, check out our Patreon page and see how you can become part of it thank you very much, that's it from me see you around and be the best human being you can be bye