Environmental Club

The College’s Environmental Club (better known as ‘Sprout Squad’ to members) has been busy in the college community lately. Since Sprout Squad’s beginning in 2018, the club has grown to over 50 members, and some significant changes have been made around the College in the interest of the environment, such as the recycling of bottles and cans initiative, recycling bins in classrooms, food scrap bins and paper and cardboard bins located around the campus, as well as the regular and recycling bins. So far, the introduction of the bins has cut the College's general waste in half!

As Sprout Squad is a flourishing club at Mount Alvernia, we had the opportunity to choose a badge to represent the dedication each student has to the club and the environment. We decided to support a local Etsy business, which designed a brilliant sprout badge. As seen here:

Each student in the club had the opportunity to come up on Assembly and be presented with a badge. Congratulations to the students who received these. This year we plan to involve and reach out to the community more. One initiative we have taken is to post regular updates in the News & Views.

Ange Guscott and Alana Tweddell

NDVR Foundation

How to recycle unwanted household items, furnishings, books, etc

In a recent Sprout Squad meeting it was brought to our attention that, due to COVID-19, aspects of the reuse/recycle market (specifically, the curbside Kmart initiative) are no longer able to be supported by local communities. Though it is no longer encouraged to recycle unwanted products by leaving them on the curb for collection, this provides a great opportunity to support local foundations which have their own tip shops and recycling market.

As one of Sprout Squad’s initiatives for this year, we’d like to encourage all families in the Mt A community to support the Endeavour (NDVR) Foundation, a member of Charitable Recycling Australia, by taking any unwanted household items, furnishings, books, etc, to your local NDVR centre. Not only does this support our environment by reducing our contribution to landfills, but it also supports a wonderful cause, with all proceeds being reinvested back into providing real possibilities for people with a disability.

To find out more about your closest NDVR recycling centre/tip shop, visit the following link.

Livi Snape

Plastic Free July

Why would you make something that you’re going to use for only a few minutes, that is made from a material that will basically last forever, but then just throw it away? There’s no real good reason for this, is there? But lucky for you (and our environment), there are so many easy alternatives!

Next month is Plastic Free July. Plastic Free July challenges you to say no to single-use plastics, and helps you and millions of people globally by providing resources and ideas to reduce this waste everywhere you go.

Refuse the four big plastics:

Plastic bags
Plastic drink bottles
Coffee cups
Plastic straws

Instead, bring a tote bag, bring a metal drink bottle, a reusable coffee cup, or a metal straw. These small changes will drastically reduce the amount of plastic waste that is produced at our college as, on average, a child who has a disposable lunch generates three pieces of rubbish per day, which equals a monstrous 30 kilograms of waste per child per year! The small changes you make can have a massive impact on our communities, and hopefully these new great alternatives are things you will implement into your everyday life as a habit.

As part of the Sprout Squad’s initiative for the month, our college is taking part in Plastic Free July. It was launched with an inter-house competition that occurred last Friday where, as a college, we picked up rubbish during Home Room and encouraged students to place their plastic waste in designated collection areas. This will occur again on Friday Week 1 Term 3, where the House competitions will continue to see which House can collect the most plastic waste.

To read more about Plastic Free July and how you can help the environment, check out the links below:

https://www.plasticfreejuly.org

https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/get-involved/what-you-can-do/students-parents/

https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/get-involved/what-you-can-do/at-school/

https://www.enviroweek.org/howtos/primary-nude-food/

Sophie Bennett, Jorja Wallace, Hannah Slade