An Exciting Drive Past

There was much excitement last week when we were suddenly taken 

outside to witness the unveiling of one of the new massive recycling depots destined for our very own Black Bridge transfer station or commonly known ‘dump’. 

 It had been designed by Angela to be a far more user-friendly, more attractive and definitely effective way of collecting everyones recycling. 

On its way to its new home at the dump Angela had kindly asked for a drive past so Room 7 and 8 and Mrs Lindsay, could see another cog in the recycling wheel, and one we hope all the children will be familiar with in their own homes.

Waste Audit

Now for our Waste Audit.  This has been quite an important event and one we shared the results of in Mondays assembly.  We had the help of Angela Aitkin, Max and Islas Mum who is also the Waste officer at the Regional Council.  She brought along all the necessary gear.  We had collected a weeks worth of school rubbish and tipped it out onto tarpaulins to be sorted into crates. A rather icky job, thanks Tamsin for your help.  Here are some interesting results.

• ·         We take 2 ½ big green wheelie bins to the dump every week which costs a lot in dump fees.
• ·         There was 10kgs of food scraps in the rubbish.  This was nearly half the total weight of all the weeks rubbish going to the landfill. This should be put into the food buckets in the lunch area- going to the pig, the worm farm or the compost.
• ·         There was 2 ½ kgs of paper and cardboard in the rubbish which should be in the paper recycling bins.
• ·         We filled 5 crates with soft plastics.  This is gladwrap, chippie and muesli bar packets and plastic bags.  There were a lot of snap-lock bags in there as well which can be reused.
• ·         We found a lot of yoghurt pots that can be washed and recycled.
• ·         There were even milk cartons which need to be folded and put into the blue bins.
• ·         Coffee cups can be recycled if they have the recycle triangle on the bottom.

          

We wrote about the experience....

On Wednesday Room 7 and 8 did a waste audit.  This was with Isla and Max's Mum Angela.  She is a Waste Warrior and works for the council.  
There was a lot of food that people hadn't eaten and there weas a lot of chippie packets in the rubbish as well.  There was manderin peels in the rubbish bin!
We sorted out the rubbish in the bags.
We can recycle and reuse the yoghurt pots so they don't need to go to the landfill.
                                                               Lily

Yesterday Angela told us about reducing our waste.  The important thing was that I didn't knowthat there was going to be so much food scraps that weren't suppose to go in the rubbish bin.  Don't put your yoghurt pots in the bin because you can reuse them.
                                                            Jokarvin

On Wednesday Room 7 and 8 did a Waste Audit.  I was surprised by how much plastic there was in the rubbish.
We did the Waste Audit so we could work out how much rubbish there is in the whole school for one week.  There is lots in the whole school.  There is more than 100 pieces of rubbish in the school.
A lady called Angela talked about the rubbish and the litter.
We found yoghurt pots that can be washed and reused.  You can put plants in them like poppies.                                                   Sophie

We are making posters to share our findings.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Reducing our schools waste has been our topic for the term.  

We have been working with room 8 on this programme.  

We began by looking at what sort of waste our school produces and where it goes.  We interviewed our caretaker Keith who told us about what he does with the schools rubbish and where it goes. We like helping Keith keep our school looking great by picking up any rubbish we see lying around the place. We are getting prepared for 'Keep New Zealand Beautiful' week which is at the end of term.