What we’re doing to manage waste sustainability by reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering waste to improve resource efficiency whilst working towards a circular economy.
Meet our Clean Green Waste Team:
P7s Shivani and Lily are leading the Waste initiative.
Here is our Waste action plan for this session:
Our 2023/24 progress:
Food Waste at Lunch Time
Food waste is measured at the end of each lunch time and recorded over the week. The winning class receives a certificate and extra playtime as a reward. This is overseen by the Clean Green Waste Team. The Clean Green board lets us know who is on duty each week.
Menu Choices
We were unable to develop our food weighing to begin to influence menu options this session but next session we intend to have a school dinner incentive of some kind (star tray?). We will start the school year with a questionnaire to families to gauge the number of school dinners vs packed lunches and about their likes and dislikes.
Food Waste in the Playground
With free fruit and free toast being on offer every day to our pupils, we were concerned with the amount of waste being binned outside which was recyclable. We sourced another food caddy and took this outside into the playground. This is also weighed and recorded to show food waste measurements to the school.
Waste Not, Want Not
Our Waste Team introduced a Share Tray in the dinner hall which saves food being wasted as those who are hungry can have what someone else either didn’t like or want. We haven’t yet been able to work with our catering team to do the same with the hot meals left over. We intend to look into the procedures surrounding this and roll this out next session as we believe many of our young people will benefit from being able to take home a warm meal.
SHARE TRAY PIC
Food waste at home
This session we have been part of the ‘Dinnae Forget Your Caddy’ challenge. This involved raising awareness to our learners about what food waste items can be recycled and where their food waste goes once collected. The Clean Green Waste Team presented this to each class using the CGS PowerPoint. We held a competition to name our school Caddy, named ‘The Caddiator’. Noting that our bin collection day in New Cumnock is a Friday, staff will ask pupils that morning, if they had popped out their food caddy for collection, awarding them a token for ‘The Caddiator’ and choosing a prize winner each month. This was promoted on our communication platforms to boost engagement. We are very hopeful that our Caddy Count has increased due to this promotion.
Informing our families about food recycling
EA Waste staff were present at our Parents Evenings to encourage our families to recycle their household waste correctly, reducing the amount of waste taken to landfill. A visit from the Romaquip lorry for not only our Clean Green Team, but also other classes in the school, further promoted how to dispose of household waste efficiently and deepened their understanding of where it goes and how it is recycled. We have shared the Clean Green Cookbook with our families on our school blog, but intend to do more to promote it and work with it with our Parents Group next session to also develop cooking skills.
Junior Jannies
Each class is equipped with both a paper and plastic recycling bin. Children are encouraged to use these correctly in class and Junior Jannies collect these weekly and put the waste in the appropriate bins at our recycling station.
Battery Recycling
We have registered for the Big Battery Hunt but have to follow this up next session.
Cost of the School Day
Our Cost of the School Day group was established, with representatives from every class. We have attended Cost of the School Day Voice Network throughout the session. Our school uniform bank and jackets is available all year round and is very accessible to our families, placed at the community entrance. We continue to run themed recycling events for Christmas party dresses and Halloween costumes. At school events such as concerts and Parents Evenings, we give these stalls a further boost. This have proven very useful for our new families joining the area. We have included shorts and joggers and indoor PE shoes recycling stations within our changing rooms to ensure our children are equipped with appropriate kit and therefore able to fully participate in PE lessons. With Phase 2 closing down, we continue to promote from our school communications when NCDT are hosting events such as Table Top Sales.
Ragbag Collections
We didn’t do a Ragbag collection this year.
Reusable Water Bottles
We haven’t looked into reusable water bottles yet. We intend to meet with the Parent Council and action this next session.
Next Steps:
To investigate food waste trends within the dinner hall. To further develop our ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ campaign to include hot meals. Work with families to develop cooking skills and incorporate the Clean Green cookbook into this. Implement a battery recycling station. Reintroduce Ragbag collections with support from the Parent Council. Run a reusable water bottle campaign, working with the Parent Council to ensure every child has one in school.
