Learning Story

St Agnes’ has begun a wonderful initiative in reducing waste amongst the students.

Each week a class is allocated paper recycling duty. For example, last week 3/4K were rostered on. At least twice a week, after lunch, the students go around the school to collect all the paper bins. The students then tip the paper into the huge metal paper recycling bins in the playground.

The students, in many of the classes, also reuse the paper if it has only been written on one side. The students, in 3/4K, use the other side of the paper to play maths games or write notes for projects etc. Frequently, the paper that has been used on both sides is then placed in the paper recycling bin.

In 3/4K we are beginning to collect food scraps for our compost bin. We have two students, Thomas B and Zachary B, who are responsible for taking the food scrap bin to the compost area. The boys enjoy doing this and they realise that this is benefiting the environment by enhancing the soil that provides nutrients for the vegetables growing in our garden area.

We also are developing a worm farm. Worm farms, help to reduce the amount of waste that goes into landfill and also helps to reduce contamination and greenhouse gases.

For the future we would like to encourage all students at St Agnes’ to use both sides of the paper they are using to minimise waste. It would also be wonderful if the students could all use a food waste bin in their classroom so that composting can occur in our school garden which will also contribute to the reduction in land fill.