News from the Environment Team

MGC staying the course on the NPS (National Parks Scheme)

We find many water bottles left around the school. In fact our maintenance staff filled a 240L green bin with drink bottles! Unclaimed water bottles pile up around the school and we don’t have the space to hold on to them. In the past, they have gone straight to landfill. On Thursday the 14th of November a representative from a homeless shelter came and collected the unclaimed bottles. These bottles will now be distributed to people living rough on the streets of Melbourne’s CBD to help prevent them from dehydrating over the summer. This is a great outcome. However it also highlights the fact that a number of our students are not properly valuing and taking care of their property. Property that hard working parents like you, have mostly likely paid for. A lost, misplaced and/or forgotten water bottle will possibly lead to the purchase of another. And so the cycle continues.

We will hang on to the bottles for a couple of weeks but as mentioned, we cannot hang on to them forever. Please instill in your child the value of their things and the importance of continual reuse in order to reduce our overall impact on the planet’s resources. Remember we also have plenty of reusable containers to give away. Don’t go buying them!

We need your help! Soon the National Parks Scheme team will soon begin writing a policy to further embed this change into the everyday at Melbourne Girls’ College. If you feel as though you could offer us any assistance please get in touch. We would value input from parents who work in change management, public relations or sustainability.  Also, if there is anyone out there that can donate any prizes or giveaways to our students to help encourage them to continue with this great work, please get in touch.

paula.mcintosh@mgc.vic.edu.au

Please follow our journey towards zero waste and keep yourself up to date with all the latest IG @zerowasteschoolsaustralia

MGC continues to keep waste out of Landfill!

• Ms Lucas installed a brand new solar cone outside the Lyceum last week
• Tony and the IT guys have discovered a new service that will collect all our superseded school computer equipment and repurpose what it can.
• We continue to recycle printer cartridges, batteries and paper and cardboard products!
• The Student Enviro team organised a stationery and book swap during Headstart to encourage reusing of materials and thanks to the Interact club for coordinated a stationery donation box in the Library.