Stuarts Point students study up on sustainability

The question then is, which bin? It's paper, so the yellow bin, right?

Wrong, soiled paper like paper towel goes in the council green bin for composting as discovered this year at Stuarts Point Public School.

Stuarts Point PS led by Principal Tonya Worling has always been keen on sustainability, doing what they can to reduce their impact on the planet, with initiatives such as 'win bins' for zero waste lunch boxes, participation in Midwaste's Lunchmakers program and an emphasis on reduce, re-use and recycle.

In July this year the Youth Environment Council (YEC) team at Stuarts Point Public School; Olivia, Kimberly, Kyla and Annabelle conducted a waste audit with Green Leaders mentor Jane Grebert to see how the school was going with their waste, with a few unexpected findings.

Mostly they found the school was doing really well with hardly any food waste in the red and yellow bins, as they have a great system of collecting food scraps in a bucket for the compost heap at school.

Olivia and Kimberley were surprised by some food they found wasted in the bin.

"We found a whole mandarin and 2 poppers that were still mostly full of juice," they said.

The students also found lots of paper towel in both the yellow and red bins, and 10 cent return containers.

The YEC group came up with a list of actions; to separate paper towel waste for the Council green bin, separate return and earn 10 cent containers with a dedicated bin (and educate students to ensure poppers are finished or emptied), collect bread clips and soft plastic recycling collection, and restart worm farms/ reinvigorate school compost.

Since then they have been successful in separating paper towel to go the the Council green bin, and collecting 10 cent return containers like poppers to raise money.

Next year Stuarts Point is planning to reinvigorate their school composting with a Midwaste 'Scraps to Soil' workshop, and to extend their recycling to include soft plastics and bread clips.

For help in reducing waste at your school contact Midwaste at info@midwaste.org.au.

For more information about implementing sustainability in your school with relevant resources, interactive lessons and a like-minded community go to www.sustainableschoolsnsw.org.au.

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