Broadgreen and Waimea Intermediate schools take a leap of faith to become the first Zero-waste schools in our region!

Spearheaded by a super-keen group of students and supported by truly dedicated teachers, Broadgreen Intermediate School is on track to be one of the first zero-waste schools in the region! A year after starting their zero-waste challenge, caretaker Peter says the waste has reduced by a fantastic 50%. And, even better, they’ve inspired Waimea Intermediate to follow their lead.

I asked Craig Maybee, a Broadgreen teacher who has been driving the initiative, why the school took the zero-waste path. “We knew we could do better as a school”, he said. “If we are serious about changing the way our actions affect our environment, our students need to take ownership of the problem at a young age. We didn’t want it to be a case of us teachers making them do it; after all, they will be the ones cleaning up after we are gone!”

With an enthusiastic Principal and everyone on board, they whisked away the rubbish bins and replaced them with labeled recycling bins. A team of students volunteered to take responsibility for managing their classroom waste and educate their peers about how and why the school was going zero-waste.

“We want our school to have no rubbish at all!” say Campbell, Joseph, Cale and Yazmin, part of the Broadgreen Zero-waste Monitors team, “and stop everything going to landfill. We’ve had great support from the teachers, who make sure people put things in the right bins or take their rubbish home.”

“We collect the recyclables from each room every week and put them in large recycling bins ready for collection. A local farmer picks up the food scraps everyday for his pigs.” They also have a bowl in every classroom where students put any unwanted food for students who have forgotten their lunch!   

Their enthusiasm is infectious; a couple of inspirational teachers at Waimea Intermediate School, asked them how they could get started too. Alan the caretaker and Graeme the groundsman at Waimea got a fright when, at the start of the school year, it was announced that the school was going zero-waste. They thought it would be impossible.

Now they are delighted. “When the rubbish bins were closed up, it was like taking a leap of faith” said Alan, “and the miracle is that it worked! I no longer have to go around the school emptying all the bins. The skip used to be emptied once per week but now it’s only once per month…. At $80 a time for pick-up, that saves the school a huge $240 a month.”

So how did they do it?

• They formed a ‘waste-buster’ group with 2 students per class;
• They placed colour-coded recycling bins in each classroom, including a small, open bin for non-recyclable rubbish—the key one to be minimised;
• A PACK-IN PACK- OUT policy for non-recyclable lunch wrapping is in place—if the students bring in muesli bars, etc., they have to take the wrapper home again;
• Students with rubbish-free lunches are awarded a ticket that can be exchanged for rewards, such as trendy zero-waste lunchboxes;
• The canteen now only sells food in recyclable containers;
• The food is collected for local chickens/ pigs.

“There are still lots of problems to sort out”, admitted the waste-busters at their weekly meeting. “The main problem is motivating students who can’t be bothered, and drop their rubbish on the ground when no one’s looking – But we are working on it!”

Littering is an ongoing problem for both schools, but the students are coming up with some innovative ideas for dealing with it.

“We are planning a surprise litter audit - we’ll collect all the litter in the grounds and see what it is and where it comes from. Then we’ll ask everyone how to stop it happening. Then, a celebration –to reward students and make it fun. We’ve got lots of ideas, we just need to DO IT!”

Well good luck to you all – you’re doing an awesome job! And there’s a whisper on the breeze that another school might have caught the zero-waste bug and be planning another leap of faith!