Environmental and Zoological Education Centres
By working with schools, we engaged more than 2,500 students to take ownership of their schools waste.
Back to school
Understanding what waste you produce, what happens to it once you throw it away and its impact on the environment is a powerful tool to get people to understand why changing the way they interact with waste is important. What better way to do this than at school?
The EPA partnered with the NSW Environmental and Zoological Education Centres (EZEC) to help educate students about the impact of their waste. EZEC worked with 21 schools to help understand their waste profile and simple, practical ways to help reduce their footprint through the development of individual waste reduction action plans.
Darlinghurst Public School in inner Sydney focused on waste free lunchboxes, in-classroom recycling, organics collections and direct presentations to each class in the school. Over the plan of the program the school was able to reduce its waste by 35% based on volume.
One teacher was incredibly proud of the leadership shown by the students, saying “Darlinghurst Public School is incredibly grateful for the work you came and did with Year 2 last year. As a result, you have positively impacted the school’s ability to effectively recycle our paper. You have educated all students from K-6 about the importance of recycling and what goes in each bin. This is all vital to students playing an important role in the recycling and rubbish practices of the school.
“As a result of building confidence in teaching staff, a green team has been established at the school for 2023 across K-6 students. Additionally, we have started to implement nude food days this year, with our first one taking place on the 22nd of March.”
Dural Public School was a great example of the whole-of-school community getting behind the program. The program was led by students and supported by Student Representative Council members, the school principal, parents and of course many other enthusiastic students. When looking at the school’s waste audit data, the obvious result was the huge decline in organics waste ending up in general waste bins. The school was able to reduce this through the introduction of compost bins and sending some organics to the on-site chicken farm. The teacher leading the program also limited the number of bins in the playground and introduced sorting stations to get the students thinking and making deliberate choices about how they engage with their waste. Student Representative Council leaders kept data on lunchbox waste, and classes with the least waste received prizes, effectively gamifying their sustainability progress. The principal supported the students through the purchase of compost caddies and recycling bins which helped to acknowledge and endorse the students’ passion for this work.