Schools Challenged to Rethink Waste
23 January 2012
Schools across Northern Ireland have been challenged to think about ways they can reduce, reuse and recycle all the paper and plastic they are using by participating in a “Rethink Waste” initiative facilitated by TIDY Northern Ireland’s Eco-Schools’ and Bryson Charitable Group.
This WRAP funded project aims to raise young people's awareness about the impact of paper and plastic waste on the environment, to engage their families in reducing consumption and to help participating Eco-Schools to achieve the prestigious international Green Flag status.
Forty-two schools will be asking their pupils to stop unwanted junk mail coming to their homes and providing them with reusable water bottles. The schools will also avail of workshops bursting with ideas and activities for the children to implement both in school and at home.
Speaking at the launch of the project at Carnmoney PS, TIDY NI's Chief Executive Dr Ian Humphreys said: "Eco-Schools is helping pupils, parents and teachers to actively work towards sustainable lifestyles and if last year's success is anything to go by we can eagerly anticipate some exciting results in terms of reductions in plastic and paper consumption, further reducing dependence on our already overburdened land fill sites.''
Dr Ian Garner, Manager of WRAP Northern Ireland, which administers the Rethink Waste Fund said: "The Eco-schools programme gives children hands-on experience in learning how they can play their part in helping improve and maintain our environment, and share these ideas when they get home! I'm very pleased that the Rethink Waste Fund has again been able to support Eco-Schools in getting the waste prevention message into schools across Northern Ireland."
As operators of the Eco-Schools programme TIDY NI has excellent relationships with schools throughout Northern Ireland and we are delighted to be able to engage with the schools in improving their resource efficiency. This new partnership enables local schools to also focus on serious environmental issues facing young people and to help to build a more sustainable future for Northern Ireland.".
John McMullan, Chief Executive of Bryson Charitable Group, said: "Bryson Charitable Group is delighted to be here today along with our partners to launch the next phase of this innovative Rethink Waste Education Project. This project aims to educate the youngest members of the family, who have a great influence at home, on what they and their families can do to reduce waste. It will involve activities in school with homework involving the rest of the family. Delivering the programme in a fun and interactive way will help to reinforce the very important message of reducing our waste and we at Bryson are dedicated to achieving this goal".
Environment Minister Alex Attwood, whose department has provided funding towards the initiative said: "This project is an excellent example of partnership working and I commend TIDY Northern Ireland's Eco-Schools' and Bryson Charitable Group for their work to date. These practical workshops, combined with the project to stop unwanted mail, will really inspire the schools involved to reduce, reuse and recycle more in the normal course of the day. I look forward to finding out how much waste the schools prevent going to landfill at the end of the project. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of the recipients of this Rethink Waste Fund revenue programme and wish them every success in their efforts to improve resource efficiency, divert waste from landfill and help meet EU targets."
Principal Mr. Brian Duff, Principal Carnmoney PS said the Rethink Waste project offers his school another creative and engaging topic for study to meet the Eco-Schools award criteria: ''Carnmoney Primary has always actively promoted environmental awareness as a key element in its curriculum and it was a natural progression for the school to be part of the Rethink Waste initiative which will in turn assist the staff, pupils and wider school community focus on the need to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The school is using the resources and expertise available from this initiative to help it achieve Bronze Eco-School status, with the ultimate aim being that the school is in possession of the prestigious Green Flag.''
Mr. H Webb, principal of Carrickfergus College also had positive views on the project: ''We, at Carrickfergus College are looking forward to the Rethink Waste Project. We are using it as an initiative to re-launch our Eco-Schools committee and strive towards achieving our silver award by June. It is an exciting and interactive way of promoting waste reduction both within our school and the wider community as pupils will be taking home information to parents which they can respond to. We hope to have a big impact with many households from our school signing up for the mail preference service and also thinking more carefully about our usage of resources, their waste and the impact on the environment.''
Although there are only 42 Schools directly involved in this project we would encourage all schools to look at our websites www.eco-schoolsni.org and www.brysoneducation.org as we have produced specific Key Stage 1-3 materials that are freely available for all schools to use.
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