How to manage our school waste

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The first step in setting up a successful waste management programme in your school is to make sure that all parties which could affect the programme’s success namely; school management, teachers, parents, students, and the school cleaning staff, buy-in to the idea and are committed to making it work. One of the best ways to do this is to create a waste project committee that includes representation from each of the key groups.

Your first requirement will be to identify the school’s waste coordinator (leading waste champion). Ideally, this will be a fairly senior teacher within the school (someone from within the school’s senior management team). The waste coordinator will be responsible for heading up the waste management committee and coordinating the waste management programme across the school. More specifically he/ she will need to:

Take responsibility for initiating, planning and implementing a waste audit
Develop and drive the implementation of action plans to reduce, reuse and recycle waste within the school environment
Raise awareness of the school’s waste minimisation programme and highlight the roles that each of the key groups need to play to make it a success
Provide training for other school staff
Set up and chair regular meetings with the school waste management committee
Keep the school’s head teacher and management informed
Raise awareness within the surrounding community, and with media and/ or business with the objective of generating support/ financial assistance for the initiative.

It would be ideal if the school’s head teacher or principal were directly involved in the waste management programme since that would ensure it was supported from the top-down. However, if this is not possible, the waste committee should set up regular update sessions with the head teacher, to keep them informed on how the initiative is progressing and get support for new ideas, and input on addressing challenges that may arise.

The waste committee should include 2 – 3 other teacher representatives, preferably from different areas within the school (e.g. one teacher from the academic side, one teacher from the arts and crafts side, and one teacher from the sporting side). As far as other staff is concerned, also include representation from the school caretaker and/or cleaning staff as their day-to-day activities can play an important role in its success.

It’s also important to have parents on the waste management committee. The success of your school’s waste minimisation programme, specifically the recycling centre, will depend on support from parents who will bring waste from home for recycling, and offer to help in the recycling centre.

Having students on the committee is also important, as they will help generating awareness and support from their peers.

Waste Audit

Now that your waste committee has been established, you can move onto conducting your waste audit. A waste audit will help you establish how much, and what type of waste your school currently throws away. This audit will give you information such as where your school produces its waste (classrooms, cafeteria, playground etc), what types of waste are produced, and how much is produced.

Here are some guidelines on how to conduct your schools waste audit

MaterialsYou will need:

Bagged rubbish
Old carrier bags (eight for each group involved in the audit)
10-20 large bin bags
Spring balances or Newton meters
Ground sheet/floor covers
Clipboards with copies of the recording sheet
Rubber gloves (one pair for each adult and child)
Overalls or old clothing.

Preparation

Identify an average school day on which you will audit your school’s waste. Let all the staff know when the audit will take place
Carry out a risk assessment - consider what the dangers associated with the audit might be and put measures in place to minimise them.
You may want to send a letter to the parents to inform them about the activity, ask them to provide old clothing for the children to wear on the day, and possibly to request adult volunteers to support the activity in school.
Ask the school caretaker to save one day’s waste from the entire school, including non-teaching areas such as bathrooms, staff rooms, offices and external areas e.g. the playground.
Ask the caretaker to look through the bags to remove sharp objects and label each bag with the area of the school it came from (e.g. classroom 1, playground). Ensure that bags of food waste are clearly labeled and kept separately. Store all bags of waste safely overnight.

The audit

Clearly explain all the health and safety issues to the students involved in the audit. Gloves should be worn at all times and students should call an adult if they see any sharp objects in the rubbish etc.
Weigh all bags containing discarded food and capture the results in grams on the recording sheet. Once you are done you can dispose of the waste in the usual manner.
Divide the students involved in the audit into three to four groups. Each group should have a ground sheet to work around, a recording sheet and pencil, and a set of spring balances or Newton meters.
Get each group to empty the contents of one bag of rubbish at a time onto the plastic mat and sort it into the different types of waste shown on the recording sheet below.
Groups should have a separate carrier bag for each waste type. They will sort the waste into these bags and weigh them using an appropriate spring balance or Newton meter. Log the results on the recording sheet.
Once the contents of the carrier bags in each group have been weighed and recorded, empty them into larger bin bags and re-use the carrier bag.
When all bags have been sorted and the data has been recorded, dispose of the waste and recyclables in the usual manner.

The follow up

The next step is to calculate the daily, weekly and yearly waste totals for the school. Multiply daily totals by five for the weekly results, and the weekly totals by 38 weeks (the average number of weeks per year spent at school). Work out the percentage of different types of waste produced.
Compare waste data from different areas around your school to identify the waste ‘hot-spots’ (places where most of the waste is being generated)
Discuss your findings. What are the most common types of waste? Is any of it recyclable? Which type of waste would make the biggest difference if recycled?
This is the information you will use in planning how to REDUCE, REUSE AND RECYCLE your school’s waste.
Present your findings to the rest of the school through an assembly or newsletter.

Reduce Waste at School

The best way to solve our waste problem is to firstly reduce the amount of waste we produce. So, depending on the outcome of your school’s waste audit, your school should try and focus on the waste stream(s) you are producing the most of and see where you can reduce your waste output. Looking at ways to reduce your waste output can be fun. How about allocating each of the classes in your school a specific waste generation area and task the pupils to come up with clever ways to reduce the waste being produced. Implement the viable ideas and track the effect it has on the school’s waste generation. Award the class whose recommendations have the biggest impact on the volume of waste the school produces.

Here are some more tips on how to reduce the waste you generate

Avoid buying products with excessively packaging.
Reduce packaging by buying the items you use frequently in bulk, and by purchasing refills and concentrates.
Try to buy products with packaging that is made from recycled materials
Try not to buy disposable products such as paper plates.
Choose glass over plastic as it can always be recycled.
Avoid all toxic and hazardous products where possible so try and use organic cleaning products in your school and at home. They are safer for you, and for the environment.

Reuse Waste at School

Always bear in mind that waste is not waste until it is wasted! Finding clever and effective ways to reuse waste will save your school money, help your school to make money, and help to cut down the volumes of waste being sent to landfills. Based on your waste audit results, allocate each class in your school a waste stream and task them with coming up with different possible ways to reuse that waste. Ask each class to produce a project showcasing the ideas they have come up with. Put the projects on display around the school and implement the viable waste reuse ideas around the school.

Here are some more handy tips to help your school reuse the waste that it is generating

Before disposing of something you no longer need, try and think about other ways in which your school could use it e.g. discarded paper could be used to make paper mache, discarded cans could be used in your arts and crafts classes and glass jars could be used to hold crayons or pencils in the classroom. You could probably think of plenty of other ideas if you put your mind to it. Once you have identified ways to reuse certain waste streams ask the students to bring those streams of waste into school from home, thereby reusing waste that is generated in households as well.
Look outside of your school for people who may want to reuse the waste you are producing. For example, artists may use recycled waste to produce their art. You may even be able to sell your waste to external parties thereby making some money for your school.
Where possible, repair items that are broken. Support the local seamstress and carpenter. This will both reduce waste and stimulate employment, growth and development in your community.
Avoid using non-recyclable materials such as cling wrap or tin foil at your school.
When it comes to organic waste such as leftover food, create compost. There are different ways to make compost so select one that suits your specific situation. Think about how much organic waste you have access to as well as the time and space you have available for composting. You could also consider using the compost you are making to set up a small-scale commercial vegetable garden. Your school could sell the vegetables to members of your community and generate additional income.

Setting up the recycling centre

Having established your waste committee, done your waste audit, looked at ways to reduce that waste and reuse the materials before they are wasted, the final step in the move towards effective waste management is to set up your school’s recycling centre.

Recycling refers to the separation of recyclable waste from the general waste stream, and the eventual reuse of these materials. Recycling not only saves resources but also reduces the environmental impact of manufacturing new products, and the impact of waste at landfills.

Let’s take a look at what’s involved in setting up your school’s recycling centre:

What to Recycle

Use the results of your waste audit to determine which waste streams you’re going to recycle. The success of your centre will, to a large extent, depend on the access you have to the various waste streams. If, for example, your audit showed that your school does not throw away much glass, then you will need to either leave glass out of your recycling plans, or look to outside sources to bring glass into the centre.

Here are some ways to make sure that you are benefitting from all the waste that is being generated in the school:

Internal Recycling Points

Make recycling easy by positioning recycling points as close to the source of waste as possible e.g. place a paper recycling bin next to the photo copier/printer.
Label recycling points clearly, so that everyone knows where they are and what should go in them.
Put recycling points and normal rubbish bins next to each other.
Your collectors may provide you with recycling containers or you can use data from your waste audit to help you decide what type, size and quantity of recycling bins will best suit your school.

Collecting from Internal Recycling Points

Decide who will be most suitable to empty materials from your internal recycling containers and deliver them to your recycling centres. For example, could students get involved on a rotational basis? Think about any equipment that students or other “internal collectors” will need and how often you would want them to collect.

External Sources of Waste

We’d recommend you also look to external sources of waste for your school’s recycling centre. Here are some possible outside sources that you could consider across all waste streams:

Learners’ homes (for organic waste, plastics, glass, cans and paper)
Restaurants near your school (specifically for glass and cans, and perhaps for organic waste
Retail outlets near your school (specifically for cardboard, boxes that merchandise is delivered in)
Businesses that have operations near to your school (for the supply of high quality white paper etc.)
Other schools close to your school that have not implemented their own recycling programme and who are happy to supply waste from their school and from their students’ households to your centre

The distance between your school centre and the various waste sources, as well as how you will get the waste from source to your centre, needs to be carefully considered. Although access to more waste will certainly enable you to generate more revenue, you need to be sure that the costs of getting the waste to your recycling centre (e.g. cost of accessing a vehicle, cost of fuel etc.) do not exceed the benefits.