MGCs waste revolution rolls on

This week the Sustainability team collected the names of over 70 students that had bought zero waste lunches to school. That’s impressive! We’re so pleased that so many students have taken the message of reducing their own personal plastic waste seriously and that this is reflected in they bring to school. The names of 6 students have been drawn out and they will collect some cool low waste life style prizes thanks to the “Source”.

As I go around the yard at recess and lunchtimes, talking to students about their waste and how they think the initiative is going, many questions come up. One is “why have some bins been reopened?” The answer to this is, there are some of the permanent bins around the school that have been reopened so that the hirers can use them. We are working on the construction of a device so we can easily lock and unlock the bins so that the hirers can access them on the weekends. We are obliged through existing contractual arrangements to provide them with bins.

Moving forward we’d like parents to be aware that we have applied for a grant through the Local Schools Community Fund https://www.education.gov.au/news/local-schools-community-fund-open-applications. We are hoping to obtain funding to purchase a Food Waste Dehydrator through an Australian company called Eco Guardians https://www.ecoguardians.com.au/ . This device will be able to turn 50kg of food waste per day into soil. Our solar cones and compost bins are struggling to keep up with all the organic waste our school is producing!

Another observation I’ve made, is that some students are consuming high levels of sugar both at recess and lunch times. Parents and guardians may not be aware of this. I thought I’d mention it as it might be a conversation that you might like to have with your daughters about what constitutes a healthy diet and the health effects of a high sugar diet, both in the short and long term.  

Please continue to support our National Parks Scheme initiative by ensuring your daughter brings a lunch box that contains as little waste as you’re able to manage.

Remember we don’t need a few people doing Zero Waste perfectly, we need many of us doing it imperfectly.

On Saturday the 26th of October Lucy Skelton (Environment Captain) and I will be speaking at the St Kilda Zero Waste Festival about the NPS at MGC. It’s a free event and is taking place at St Kilda Town Hall. Please feel free to join in.

As always, if you have any questions about the NPS please feel free to email me. paula.mcintosh@mgc.vic.edu.au

Paula McIntosh.