Schools to punch toward zero waste
Two schools have proudly displayed their recent environmental findings and are moving on to the next step: becoming zero waste.
After Stratford Primary School and Matapu School joined up late last year to take part in a funded scheme, they saw such enthusiasm in their students and thought ‘why stop there?’.
The schools were funded by Venture Taranaki as a pilot scheme as part of Curious Minds Taranaki. The project was named CAPOW, which stands for Curious About Processing Organic Waste.
Principal of Matapu School Kerry Nancarrow said the students from Matapu who took part in CAPOW by reducing organic waste and trialling composting systems loved it.
‘‘We were lucky to have had that funding from Curious Minds and this has given us the momentum to keep going forward,’’ she said. ’’It’s the best thing for us is it’s not an end point.’’
Nancarrow said the school was now working with more of their students to become a zero waste school.
‘‘The neat thing is the kids have learnt so much and they just want to keep going,’’ she said. ‘‘We’ve got heaps of other students now saying ‘we want to be an enviro’.’’
The environmental coordinator at Stratford Primary School, Marlene Lewis, said her students were the same.
‘‘I’ve been amazed, a simple
‘‘Processing organic waste has created such a world of curiosity for the kids.’’
Marlene Lewis
topic about processing organic waste has created such a world of curiosity for the kids,’’ she said.
Lewis said the children had ‘‘no respect’’ for nature before the school started to explore the topic.
‘‘Last year we had kids swinging off trees and breaking branches and it used to make me just about cry,’’ she said.
Both schools were using different schemes to get their students to take their rubbish home with them, and encouraged reusable bags.
Lewis said when it all started she would get ‘‘ear fulls’’ from parents complaining on the phone, but she was happy that had since stopped.
Lauree Jones, Enviroschools Regional Co-ordinator, said there had been a real movement toward sustainable activities lately.
‘‘It’s a beautiful thing to see the children thinking about what they can do for the environment.’’