Going Plastic-Free!
KCS spoke to Holly Ashton-Lovett, Year 2 Class Teacher and Eco Leader of Westmeads Community Infant School, about how they’re going plastic-free, changing pupil’s perceptions and saving the planet one idea at a time.
Q: What made you start the initiative?
A: Being a coastal school we’ve always really cared about our local environment, especially our coastline, but the big thing for us was the BBC’s Blue Planet series, narrated by the great David Attenborough. Working as part of our coastal alliance, we had an art project which was encouraging the children, and us, to use recycled materials to send a message about the plastic problem; so we decided to use straws from our everyday carton waste. After a little research, I found a global charity, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), who were encouraging schools to go plastic-free, and that was all the encouragement we needed.
Q: What day-to-day changes have you seen?
A: Most definitely our milk carton usage – the waste that was being thrown away, especially the straws and wrappers. Our milk still comes in recyclable plastic bottles, but we found the lids were a little trickier to recycle. After some research, we found a big highstreet chain that can do it for us! A big win for us was refilling our whiteboard markers – we found a system that allows us to refill the pen over and over again, stopping so much waste over the year.
Q: What’s been the kid’s reaction to ‘going green?
A: Oh the kids have been so positive to the changes; in fact, they’re asking for more and wanting more! We’re running an ‘eco term’ throughout the whole school, where individual classes will be looking at certain areas, such as plastic and deforestation. They’re also writing to local companies about their plastic usage. For example, our free fruit, from the government, still arrives in single-use plastic nets, so we’re writing to them to encourage them to make a change as well. They’re so aware of the plastic problem all around us.
Q: Have the parents seen a positive change in the children away from the classroom?
A: That’s an interesting question. Speaking to parents, they’re commenting on how much their children have learnt and are taking back home, making changes at home. One parent mentioned that her daughter had said that she wasn’t allowed to buy strawberries from Tesco as they are packaged in plastic, and they ended up going to pick strawberries from a local farm, which is a great idea. It’s nice to see the kids going home and passing on their knowledge to their families and friends.
Q: What’s been the most challenging aspect of becoming eco-friendly?
A: In a school, it will always be the budget, and I guess for everybody at home too. It’s finding solutions that are not only really positive, but cost-effective too. Also, certain things aren’t available yet, and people are only just starting to make changes and coming up
with different ideas; once those ideas are established, then we can start to introduce them in to the school. The challenge has only just begun.
Q: What’s in store for the future – what’s the next big thing?
A: We want to get our plastic free status, and we’re working towards the five SAS objectives, and we’re hoping that, by the end of the year, we should be able to achieve that! It doesn’t just stop there though; we’ll be thinking about how we can educate our children to think beyond plastic, and make everything in our daily lives sustainable. It will definitely impact everything moving forward.
Q: What advice would you give other schools looking to implement this initiative?
A: Go with the children! Hold an assembly, show them pictures, talk about the problem; they’re fantastic at coming up with solutions as they think of things that we, as adults, don’t think about – they see all the little things going on in schools, so definitely start with them. After that, it’s all about making little changes and educating the parents, as they will help nurture ideas at home.
If you’re interested in finding out what your school could do, and how you could do it, then please go to https://www.sas.org.uk/our-work/plastic-pollution/