Change starts with us

Each term we are taking steady progress to make a difference in our College environment. As we near the end of the year, it’s satisfying to look back and see the activities we have initiated and the awareness we have raised for our Sustainability program.

How are we going? 

At the beginning of the year, we defined two main Sustainability goals for 2023 and both are about reducing waste at Trinity.  

The first goal is to remove paper from the landfill. Paper, by volume, was the largest contributor to our school’s waste as determined by our audit back in 2019. With our paper and cardboard recycling process implemented at Trinity this year, we are now diverting approximately 3,500L of paper and cardboard from landfill every fortnight! 

Now we want to focus more of our attention on reducing food-related waste, this being the next largest contributor to landfill at Trinity.  

Food and organic matter accounts for 47% of the weight of what we put in our bins, plus more from single-use food packaging and food-related waste. To try and tackle this we have been hosting Nude Food days each term, assessing how much waste we produce and promoting reusable, more sustainable food packaging. Unfortunately, the amount of single-use plastic still being left around the school is creating a litter problem at Trinity.  

Getting all the information

The most common reason students provide regarding litter at Trinity is that we don’t have enough bins. Around the outdoor areas at Trinity, we have 23 red bins for our rubbish. This is just outdoors. 

• On average, school students produce 3kg of food-related waste per school year. Times that by the current student population of 747 and that means that our student cohort produces approximately 2,241kg of food-related waste every school year. To put all of that waste in a rubbish bin, we need 2.24 cubic metres of bin space for each student per school year. 
• With our 23 240L red-lidded bins located outdoors only, we have 5.52 cubic meters of bin space available per student per every second day (as bins are emptied every Monday, Wednesday and Friday).  
• Therefore, we have more than enough bins and more than enough bin space to accommodate all student waste. Students simply need to choose to put their rubbish in the bin. 

Change starts with us! 

Our ongoing theme for Sustainability at Trinity is ‘change starts with us’. This is our motto but most importantly it’s an attitude and it’s an action.  

We have such beautiful, modern and learning-worthy spaces at Trinity and the majority of students respect our campus and appreciate all of the opportunities that are on offer at Trinity.  We witness many students who go about their day performing simple actions that show care and encourage others to do the same. 

To those few students who aren’t yet respecting our environment to the standard that we all deserve – remember that change starts with us. We need to actively choose to change to help ourselves and our environment, and to help us all achieve our sustainability goals.