By participating in the Rubbish Free Lunch Challenge students and teachers learnt the amount of waste that we are still creating in our environment. It was also interesting the number of children who were confused by the three different bins provided for the challenge.
Bianca- I think people should read the labels on the bins first because they are getting mixed up and we need to fix them.
Leilani- I think people should put them in the right bins so they don’t get mixed up. We want to find out more about rubbish and foodscraps.
Prior to the week of the challenge the children in Learning Studio 2 visited each studio and explained the challenge, they gave a copy of our letter to them outlining what we were doing and what they needed to do. On each of the following days the children went to each studio and reminded them of what they had to do.
We did not publicize it in our newsletter as having a rubbish free lunch is the expectation that we have at our school. Over time our school, the children, teachers and parents have made a concentrated effort in reducing our impact on the environment by making our lunch boxes package free. We don’t actually have any rubbish bins in our Learning Studios. There is a compost bin in each Learning Studio. The food scraps are placed in the compost bins, later they are prepared and then placed in either our compost bin or one of our worm farms.
If for some reason a child does bring rubbish in their lunchbox they are expected to take it home with them.
In regards to paper we minimize as best as we can or we reuse it. Otherwise we have two large recycling bins available, and one small council rubbish bin, which is collected fortnightly. We do have a number of paper/ plastic recycling bins available to us from the Council which is collected fortnightly. We have a skip which is collected on average once a month and it holds 3 cubic metres of waste.
As part of Resourcesmart Aussie Vic Schools Program ( our 2nd year) we are educating our children about the changes and benefits we can gain by doing small actions in our homes and at school. This is done through our inquiries and through our every day actions. Here are some of the personal responses from the children (Prep/One/Two)when we were reflecting on the results that we were recording:
Our thinking after collecting the rubbish/ recycling and food scraps Day 1-
Thomas- I wonder why we had to weigh how much rubbish, recycling and food scraps we had.
Bianca- I wonder why we had some rubbish still because we are supposed to have none. Even though we tried to have none some people still bring it.
Caeli- I think the rubbish is like not overflowing any more. Because we used to have rubbish over flowing because a lot of people didn’t know about rubbish.
Caroline- I discovered the food scraps were the highest. Because when we measured them I heard that the food scraps were the heaviest it was 2kg.
Maribel- I think you shouldn’t bring packaging to school, you can take them home or reuse them. When you put garbage in the compost then you know that some worms can eat them.
Alexander- I wonder why people keep on bringing packaging when we tell them not to bring packaging.
Joshua- I found that the fruit is heavier than the others because they have less rubbish in the bin.
Our thinking after collecting the rubbish/ recycling and food scraps Day 2-
Caeli- I think that the foodscraps might be the heaviest today just like the other day. I think it will be the heaviest because we have a lot of fruit at school. I also think there are a lot of apples because they help clean our teeth.
Mariam- The compost was the highest because we eat more fruit.
Elle- I discovered that the paper and the rubbish were the same weight.
We have over time been promoting, encouraging and supporting having rubbish free lunches every day as is shown by our results.
|
Typical Day
|
Lunch Day
|
Change (please provide both weight and %)
|
|
|
Total Rubbish (1) (kilograms)
|
0.5 kg
|
0.2kg
|
0.3kg = 40 %
|
|
Total recyclables collected (2) (kilograms)
|
0.5kg
|
0.5kg
|
nil
|
|
Total organic food scraps collected (kilograms) for compost
|
2 kg
|
3kg
|
1kg = 50%
|
|
Total number of students involved
|
135
|
135
|
|
|
Total rubbish (1) weight (kilograms)
per student (= total rubbish divided
by number of students in school)
|
0.0037
|
0.00148
|
40%
|
