Sustainabilty News
Sustainability news
PVC pipe donation
Many thanks to Toby and Quentin’s family who have donated a variety of plastic pipes to help the Grade 2’s with their Habitat activity next term. We look forward to seeing some new habitats at our school to support biodiversity at Wales Street!
WASTE AUDIT
Conducting our waste audit and learning where our waste goes with Pia and Sarah
Last Wednesday our fabulous Sustainability Group leaders had a visit from Pia and Sarah from Resource Smart schools to run a waste audit at Wales Street. We assessed our recycling and general waste using bins from a variety of places around the school. We also checked classroom to see how our bins are being used in classrooms and other spaces, and then we counted the rubbish we found in the yard.
We found that:
-There were 173 pieces of rubbish in the yard with the main culprits being lolly wrappers, chip packets and lolly sticks.
-We had 1124 pieces of landfill in just 6 general waste bins!!!
We currently have 47 landfill bins, 9 paper and cardboard bins, 21 comingled recycling bins, 5 Compost collection buckets and 8 other kinds of bins such as a container deposit, soft plastics and glass bins in the staffroom and Printer cartridge recycling bin in the office.
The group will now be working on actions to reduce the waste such as:
-Ordering another Compost Cone recycling bin.
-Making sure all classes have designated recycling bins.
-Writing to the council to ask for a Green waste bin for our school.
-Making announcements at Assembly and making posters to remind everyone to keep wrappers inside.
-Making a video to show students and teachers what can go into each bin to make sure our recycling bins are not being rejected and sent to landfill.
These actions will go towards certification of our next star as part of the Resource Smart Schools program.
Tree project- we did it!!
Last weekend I dropped our baby seedlings to the Tree Project depot in Kensington. The volunteers at Tree project want to send us a big THANK YOU for growing the seedlings since February. We have grown 1344 trees that will shortly be planted at their new home- a carbon-neutral farm. That’s such a terrific effort and I would like to say thank you to all the students and teachers who got on board to plant the seedlings and who helped me to water and look after them. It has been so wonderful to see the enjoyment of students noticing how the trees were growing and being kind to them by letting them grow. Hopefully Wales Street can be part of the project again in 2027.
All our trees packed up and on their way and at their temporary home at the old cattle saleyards in Kensington
Yours in sustainability,
Toby Marquette
WSPS Sustainability Coordinator