Teddington School in Richmond took part in Global Action Plan’s Action on Waste programme.

Background

The project helped the school reduce their waste, increase recycling and raise environmental awareness across the school community, while meeting curriculum requirements in areas such as citizenship, science and geography.

What is Action on Waste?

Action on Waste is a 3 stage process that empowers student volunteers to create environmental change within their school and local community. It involves a detailed waste audit before and after the programme and help and support throughout.

We organised assemblies and got people to recycle more. Year 8 student

Actions

Teddington School's action team of 18 enthusiastic students spent six months working hard to promote and implement actions to reduce the amount of waste produced in the school. Actions taken included:

• Writing and presenting assemblies to the whole school.
• The school took part in the Eco-Schools “design a recycling bin poster” competition with many entries across the years. A student from year 8 was chosen as the main winner. Winning a year’s supply of recycling bins and a wormery.
• Setting up recycling stations around the school for plastic, cans, paper, batteries and mobile phones.
• Class monitor system for emptying the recycling.
• Designing and creating a display board promoting the project and keeping the school community informed of “green” updates.
• Members of the action team attended a green conference promoting their achievements and met like-minded students from across London. 
• A recycling action plan has been devised for the new school currently being built.
• Environmental topics have been incorporated into the curriculum, such as Art students designing costumes out of waste products.
• Head Teacher Mr Weeks has been keeping parents and staff informed of the teams achievements through his weekly blog. 

We put in lots of recycling bins and helped promote them, we also thought of ways to reduce rubbish. Year 7 student

Successes

Teddington School reduced its waste by a fantastic 64%! This included a 68.9 % reduction in the amount of paper being thrown away in general waste bins.

This equates to diverting approximately 30 tonnes of rubbish over a year from landfill saving 8.276 tonnes/year of CO2. Through their actions the team have also achieved bronze Eco-School status.

When asked what they would tell their friends about the project, a Year 7 student said "That it's a fun project to do".

Want to get involved?

Contact us at schools@globalactionplan.org.uk.

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