Background
The Eco Committee started just under a year ago. They meet every Thursday lunchtime and numbers vary between 5 and 10 people mainly from years 7,8 and 9. The committee did an environmental audit of the school and implemented a few small-scale projects and last summer they were successfully awarded the Bronze Award. They are now working towards the Silver Award and below are some examples of projects that are taking place in school.

Garden Project
Very early on it was decided that the students on the Committee wanted to improve the environment of the school and they thought that a Garden would be the way forward as it had many benefits apart from making the school more attractive. The committee felt that people at the school could learn new skills in the garden, it could be used to grow healthy food to be used cookery lessons and it would also offset, ever so slightly, some of the schools carbon footprint with the planting of trees.

In order to get the garden the Eco-committee are having to work hard to get the money. At the moment they are carrying out some fundraising activities and earlier in the year they collected Morrison’s Vouchers to enable them to get some gardening equipment. Groundwork’s have been working closely with them to plan the Garden.

Litter Campaign
The environmental audit also identified litter as a problem. In the summer of 2009 all year 7 pupils took part in the “Big Tidy Up” around school hoping that this would improve the litter situation. In September litter was still an issue so the Eco-Committee devised a competition for year 7 and 8 pupils. They had to collect bags of litter on Friday lunchtime and then they would be given a stamp. Once they had collected several stamps they were entered into prize draw. The competition was promoted well but uptake was not successful so the committee are back to the drawing board with the litter issue.

Recycling
Recycling has been up and running at the school for a while. Most classrooms have bins for paper and cardboard. The Eco-Committee has moved the recycling efforts on a little and they have been collecting ink cartridges. At first they were going to get money for them but then it was decided that they would be donated to the Roy Castle Foundation Recycling Appeal, as they seem to collect more of the ink cartridges than most other places.

New Members
Any pupils wishing to join the Eco-Committee are more than welcome. They need to meet in the Geography department on Thursday lunchtime.