Kerry schools ‘bin it’ as part of nationwide litter campaign

THREE Kerry schools have decided to ‘Bin It!’ as part of a nationwide campaign to educate and raise awareness on the scourge of littering. Pobalscoil Inbhear Scéine, Kenmare, Causeway Comprehensive, and St Brendan’s College, Killarney are the participants.

Bin It! features an actor-led workshop that visits each secondary school across the participating local authority areas. The workshop is geared towards first-year students and explores littering and social responsibility.

“The overall aim of the Gum Litter Taskforce (GLT) campaign has always been to exact a behaviour change amongst the proportion of the public that dispose of chewing gum incorrectly,” said Chairman of GLT, Paul Kelly.

This is the eleventh year of the campaign which to date has seen over 45,242 students taking part with 6,024 attending one of the 63 workshops in 2016. The workshop tour is supported by a website (www. chewitbinit.com) which includes games and quizzes for students, lesson plans, teachers’ notes, posters and activity cards to help integrate the theme of responsible litter disposal into the curriculum. The ‘Bin it!’ tour has also been busy visiting all 26 local authority areas since early October which concludes on November 17.

“The Bin It! tour has proven to be an extremely effective, fun and interactive means of getting the important GLT gum disposal message to younger audiences. We’re seeing its effectiveness reflected not only in the attitudes and awareness research results, but also in the increasing number of participants in the tour workshops,” Mr Kelly added.

The GLT education campaign also includes outdoor poster, TV and online advertising which ran from May until August this year and an accompanying website: www.gumlittertaskforce.ie.

Students from Pobalscoil Inbhear Sceine, Kenmare participating in the actor-led workshop that visited their school. The workshop forms part of the nationwide Bin It! campaign.