Imagine a future in which plastic is no longer a problem! Middle school and high school students in Argeș, Bihor, Suceava and Tulcea are invited, until October 16, to put their imagination to the test and create, through a comic strip, the story of an object’s transformation and its second life. At stake are prizes: bicycles for students, interactive whiteboards for schools, and training courses for teachers.
BANDA ASAP, the comic strip contest dedicated to environmental education, reaches its seventh edition and invites middle school and high school students in the counties of Argeș, Bihor, Suceava and Tulcea to turn an environmental theme into a story drawn by their own hand. Registration is open on the website asap-romania.ro. Entry into the contest is done with the help of guiding teachers; the contest rules are available here.
Developed by ASAP Romania in partnership with the Animest Festival, the project uses illustration and drawing to bring topics related to the environment and responsible consumption closer to children and teenagers, with the aim of encouraging them to observe, understand and creatively reinterpret them. This edition’s theme “A discarded object gets a second life. Draw its story.” challenges students to look at objects as resources with potential. The contest draws closer to the principles of the circular economy and the “reduce, reuse, recycle” message, shifting the focus from simply collecting waste to the creative reuse and responsible use of resources.
How the contest works
Each student develops their story starting from the theme and draws it in a comic strip template available on the project’s website, asap-romania.ro. Entries are submitted by a teacher from the student’s school, until October 16, 2026. A teacher can submit any number of entries, but each comic strip must have a single author.
The prizes. A jury of illustration and comic strip specialists will select 16 winners, two for each level of education, in each of the four counties reached by the program. In each participating county, middle school students (grades V–VIII) compete against each other for two prizes, and high school students (grades IX–XII) compete against each other for two prizes. Each winning student receives a bicycle, and the school they come from will receive an interactive whiteboard. The teacher who submitted the winning entry will receive a voucher for an online professional training course. All participating students will also receive a certificate of participation.
The jury of the 7th edition brings together Ligia Soare (co-founder and co-organizer of the Anim’est International Animation Film Festival), illustrators Miruna Șmit, Alexandru Ciubotariu, an artist known as Pisica Pătrată, and Daia Grigore, graphic artist and animation film and comic strip author Matei Branea, as well as animator TRIP.
Project timeline
Registration is open: September 21 – October 16, 2026
Judging: November 9 – 20, 2026
Winners announcement: December 2, 2026
The Green Week Kit – A useful tool for teachers in the new school year
Alongside the contest, ASAP Romania is making available to teachers, with the start of the new school year, the Green Week Kit. Now in its fifth edition, the kit contains a set of theoretical materials and four interactive activities about the environment, nature and climate change, designed to be carried out in class: ASAP UNDO, ASAP Detector, ASAP Tier List and ASAP Pictogram. The kit can be downloaded for free from https://asap-romania.ro/saptamana-verde/, by filling in a form that provides access to both the 2026–2027 edition and the resources of previous editions, and it can be used during any five-day period chosen by each school for carrying out this program, between September 7, 2026 – April 23, 2027.
