At the moment, the environment is a hot topic in the media. The planet is heating up due to global warming and being overpowered by pollution, oil spills, litter and greenhouse gases.
This is why the Senior Boys Division and Senior Girls Division have joined an organisation called Eco Schools, the largest educational programme on the planet. With over 140 countries involved, Eco Schools is integrated all over the world. With the help of Year Nine Environment Club, Senior Girls Division is going to try and win an Eco Schools Award.
We took surveys of the twelve categories and then decided which three were the most important. The areas we have chosen to focus on are biodiversity, marine and litter.
There are plans to weed and improve the herb garden near the netball courts and we have planted some wildflowers, using wildflower seeds. We are hoping that in the future the area of grass near the running track will look like the wildflower meadow pictured above.
We are trying to reduce the single use plastic waste around school, with a replacement of the plastic sandwich wrappers with cardboard packaging.
To conserve energy, we have reminded pupils and staff to turn the lights off in rooms when not being used.
As a part of encouraging the school community to get involved, we have educated people about the different ways to recycle items.
Lots of things can be recycled now. Paper, food waste, bottles and cans go into the normal designated bins at home. In many supermarkets, like Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Morrisons and the Co-op, they have big bins where you can recycle soft plastics, such as crisp packets and bread bags. Even biscuit wrappers!
We have re-introduced the pen recycling scheme with pen pots made out of old fabric rolls. They have been placed in each form room and whenever a pen, correcting pen or highlighter runs out, they can be put in the pot before being sent off to recycling.
We are doing our best to lower the school’s environmental impact and we hope you can too by recycling and trying to go zero waste.
By Abigail Leaper