Sustainability

Macedon Ranges Shire Council Soft Plastics Recycling Bags Available at Newham PS

Macedon Ranges Shire Council is running a shire-wide pilot program to recycle soft plastics. Households can obtain orange bags to place their soft plastics in, and once the bag is as full and tight as a basketball, it can be put into the yellow co-mingled recycling bin for collection.

Newham PS has registered to participate in the program by distributing orange bags from the school office. Families can pick up an orange bag, take it home and put their own soft plastics (including those returned from students' lunches) into the bags.

Please see Narelle at the office if you would like an orange bag or ask your child to collect one for you.

The following are guidelines for the program.

'Bring it in, Take it Home' School Lunches

Welcome to our new families at Newham PS. As you may know, we are a 5-star ResourceSmartschool. ResourceSmart Schools is "an award-winning Victorian Government program that assists schools to embed sustainability in everything they do."

As well as practising efficient energy and water consumption, and conservation of biodiversity, our focus this term is on waste reduction. At Newham PS we have a 'Bring it in, take it home' policy for lunch and snack packaging. This means that any single use packaging of foods students bring to school, will be returned home for families to recycle. 

The policy appears to have had a positive impact, as the packaging in student lunches has greatly reduced over the past years. Many students have no single use packaging in their lunch boxes at all. The amount of litter in our school yard and adjacent land is also far less and overall, the school produces less landfill each fortnight.

Our aim is for all students to have nude food lunches at Newham PS when possible.

Here are some simple ideas using Bento style lunch boxes, for busy parents.

New Split System Heating and Cooling

The school has changed our four gas heaters in the main building to new efficient reverse cycle split system heating and cooling units. During the day, when the sun is shining, our solar panels will provide energy to help power the units. We will no longer be using gas, a finite fossil fuel, to keep us warm in winter. The main building stays quite cool in hot weather but we now have the option of cooling if needed, whilst the sun shines on our panels generating electricity. What a cool school!