Students support plan to reduce waste

Sustainability is a popular theme at schools and Capel Primary School students are working hard to protect the environment and reduce unnecessary landfill.

Earlier this year the school conducted a waste audit led by sustainability coordinator Hannah Ramsay.

The Year 5 students emptied about 30 per cent of the school’s bins and discovered each student wasted 21kg a year.

Student Thomas Reilly said his class sorted the food scraps into various categories and unearthed a lot wasteful habits.

“We found lots of paper and zip-lock bags,” he said.

“We worked out the money spent on bags could be used to buy reusable containers instead.”

Classmate Bradley Carter agreed the school was being wasteful.

“We should buy more fresh food and try to become sustainable at home,” he said.

Mrs Ramsay said the program included solar panels, a kitchen garden, water tanks and further waste monitoring.

“Next term I hope to have the students be active waste monitors,” she said.

“We discovered that unless the students were being forced to think about what they were doing they would still throw heaps away.

“We plan to recycle the scraps for compost to feed the garden which would cycle through the kitchen and around again.

“The kids are really excited about it and we hope they continue to be proactive about caring for the environment.”