This week we have installed some talking bins in the school playgrounds to encourage pupils to pick up their litter and make sure it goes into the bin. We have Derek the Duckling in the small playground and Percival the Penguin in the large playground. Anyone contributing litter is greeted with a phrase acknowledging the gift!
This week each pupil has been given a book of pledges as part of the recycling rewards for schools scheme.
Pupils simply ask family and friends to make a recycling pledge to recycle as muh of their rubbish as possible. Points are awarded to each school participating in the scheme based on how many households make a pledge and rubbish is recycled each month.
Its not just the school that benefits. For collecting 3 pledges, pupils receive a special recycling for schools lanyard and for collecting 5 pledges, they receive a special medal.
Thank you in advance for helping with this scheme and happy recycling!
This week we received 15 promotional mouse mats made from recycled car tyres from the Footprint Trust. A close up of the mouse mat can be seen below and they can be seen in use in the year 7 computer suite.
This week the new womery has arrived and members of the eco schools club have been assembling it. We have needed to get a wormery because the Green bin in the staff room provides so much waste each week that it has already filled one compost bin!
This photo illustrates the coir going in which provides the worms with moisture and a medium to move around in.
The worms arrived in a sealed bag with moist paper which protects them during their journey and provides some food and moisture - worms need to be moist so that oxygen can pass through their skin and into their blood.
The completed wormery sits next to the compost bin. We have to give the worms a couple of weeks to settle into their new home before adding any green waste but then it will be all systems go. The crates on the left can be added as the wormery fills up and we constantly rotate them as the waste in the bottom one is ready to be used as compost.
This week we have had to empty the can recycling bins as they are full! We didn't count how many cans there were but estimates are well over a hundred. These cans will now be collected by Haylands Farm as part of the Alupro 'Trees for Africa, trees for the UK' campaign.
The Recycool project
We have signed up to the recycool project which collects toner and print cartridges and old mobile phones. For every one of these items which the school collects and saves from landfill we will get a cash donation. Any of these items you want us to dispose of can be put in the red Recycool box in the school reception. As shown in this photo, 3 members of the Working Group went around the local shops and offices to promote the scheme and ask them to display posters to widen our net of contributors.
Why should I recycle my mobile phone?
Mobiles contain cadmium which is a highly dangerous and toxic substance. Once dumped in landfill sites the phone casing corrodes and the cadmium leeches out into the soil. Also, many developing countries do not have a comprehensive landline infrastructure. As a result, mobile phones may be the only way to communicate over a distance. Recycool send old mobiles to these countries to help solve the problem.
Saving paper
As part of the campaign to save paper we have been putting our weekly newsletter on the school website each week and only printing out copies to those parents who have requested it. As a result we now print out 200 copies of the newsletter each week compared to the 700 we were printing last year.
We have saved 33060 sheets of paper through this initiative so far.
As paper costs 0.28p per sheet, this equates to £88.64.
Further to this, we have saved money in Science by producing answer sheets rather than printing whole practice SATs tests. This has saved 20200 sheets and £28.56
In geography we have introduce computer based testing in KS3 saving 1600 sheets and £44.80
Total paper saving = 69260 sheets of paper and £162.00
Around the school we have been collecting paper that has only been used on one side and we have started to make our own A5 Notebooks upon the suggestion of one of the working group. These notebooks will be given to the pupils free of charge when their General Notebook has run out.
Recycling
We have continued with a bin for Green waste in the staffroom and empty this waste into the school compost bin as shown on the left. This is getting so full we need to buy another one.
We also plan to buy a wormery to continue our work in this area.
Can recycling
We have taken part in the Alupro can recycling project. By collecting cans and recycling them, AluPro contributes to tree replanting programme in Africa.
We continued to monitor paper usage in the school and and identified that we use 1500 reams per year on photocopying, printing and in lessons. This is 750,000 sheets of paper and costs in the region of £2500.
By promoting these figures in assembly we saw some change in the way that people use paper - ensuring both sides of the paper are used whereever possible, needless printing by pupils and staff did fall, although much greater strides can be made in this area, and staff have begun to think about using the Interactive Whiteboard to display information and tasks for pupils rather than printing of sets of worksheets.
We change the paper used by the school to sustainable paper. Unfortunately the cost of recycled paper still precludes its use.
We have ensured that the coffee used in the staff room is Fair Trade and we have begun to recycle organic waste in the staff room via the Green bin and food waste in the kitchen.
We identified that the majority of school waste is paper waste. Over the year we contacted Island Waste and Westridge and both said they do not collect paper for recycling as it is not profitable.
We were obviously disappointed by this but vowed to only throw paper that had been fully used away and made sure every class had a waste paper tray.
We discussed using the school as a newspaper collection site prior to recycling. Unfortunately this was deemed unfeasible due to infrequent collections and therefore we would require considerable storage space, which we do not have.
Paper usage
We looked into using recycled paper instead of brand new paper to be used in the school. Research has shown that this is at least £2.00 per box dearer than the paper we use now and this extra cost has for the moment prohibited ordering it.
In order to identify how much paper we were using the Working group logged the amount of paper being used by the photocopiers and printers. Figures show that 38000 photocopies were done per month and 2300 pieces of paper were printed each week.
We are now looking at proposals which would revolutionise the way paper is used in the school. They would cut down on paper usage and therefore ordering. Suggestions include revising the way that the newsletter is distributed and the way information is given to staff. Department Heads have been approached about the possibility of adopting on-line testing schemes or methods of reducing the photocopying of large tests.
Recycling projects
We participated in the Phones 4 schools project collecting 43 phones for the programme.
We participated in the collection of old Yellow Pages in June and amassed a total of 290 for recycling!
Lyn Bottom
The Eco schools committee undertook a visit to the local waste treatment facility to identify how waste is processed.
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