Selling culture?

When I read the article below, I nearly died of shock. We are talking about recycling and saving nature on one hand, and these bunch of so call brainy Hwa Chong Students just set a record and getting praised for symbolically POLLUTING THE SEA WITH PLASTIC BOTTLES?

When I go travelling, and i rem in Hanoi sharing a same canoe on way to Perfume mountain with a bunch of australians. As we enjoyed the beautiful scenic, we were taking up trash like PLASTIC BOTTLES from the waters. At home, I have a box that is used to collected all the used PLASTIC bottles from shampoo to listerine bottles and mineral bottles, because those are rubbish and the only place they deserve to be in are in RECYCLING BINS, not the sea!

So tell me, why use plastic bottles? Couldnt they use something else which doesnt contradict the environment ideas? Many younger people may copy the stupid idea and really cats out plastic bottles into the sea, polluting it for all we know! I am truly hoping when they say SYMBOLICALLY, they meant that someone will fish the bottle raft out of the sea IMMEDIATELY.

Selling S'pore across the seas (full online article)

The four students from Hwa Chong Institution inserted iconic symbols of Singapore into 30 plastic water bottles. The items included coconut candy, Merlion keychains and Chinese fans.

The team then made a raft out of the bottles, by taping them together, and symbolically floated it in the sea at the East Coast Park.

The team worked with students from the Loudoun County Academy of Science in Virginia in the US.The US students created a similar raft there.

Together they formed one team and submitted their entry as part of the Global Innovation Tournament organised by Stanford University.

And their joint entry won the Extreme Collaboration Award in the competition.