Game On & Tread Lightly Campaigns

In the coming school year EcoERC, will be running an initiative involving old sport balls and tennis rackets. We ask that as the Christmas season approaches any old balls be kept aside instead of being thrown out, so that we can recycle them. On another note if you are thinking of buying any new sporting shoes, slides, thongs for Christmas we will be again running the’ tread lightly campaign’ to recycle old shoes. We ask that you put them aside for this purpose.

Return and Earn

(Take to St Vinnies, credit to ERC) (CSL) Every 50 cans = 1 Hour or earn some extra cash for yourself – either way those cans, bottles and juice boxes do not end up in landfill.
At Edmund Rice, we have a Return and Earn system, where students can put their cans, bottles and juice boxes in a bin and earn points for their house. This is great because it cleans up our school.

Paper Recycling

In every ERC classroom we have a blue bin for recycling paper. The recycled paper can be made into tissues, office paper and cardboard. Each student is welcome to dispose of paper in their classroom paper bins. This could also be done at home by placing your paper in the yellow bin.

Battery recycling (library)

Have you ever wondered what you can do with your old alkaline batteries??? Well you can now send them into school where they can be recycled in the Narandha Learning Centre. There are clip lock bags that you put your old batteries then into a box which will be collected and disposed of sustainably. Students will find the battery recycling station at the book return counter. These batteries are then made into new batteries reusing the materials of copper, nickel and cobalt. If you have old batteries from tv remotes that no longer work, think about bringing them into school so that they avoid landfill.

Did you know – Each year approximately 300 million batteries are put into landfill, the equivalent of 8,000 tonnes or 2000 elephants worth of batteries. By making a conscious decision to recycle the old ones, we can all work towards a more sustainable earth.

Furthermore, if you have any bigger batteries such as a car battery and want to recycle, ‘Key Batteries’ on Mt Keira Rd in West Wollongong is happy to take them.

Bush care (CSL year 10 project)

Every Monday from 2pm-to-3pm, some of the boys in Year 10 for their major CSL project have chosen to look after the environment. Bushcare is an Wollongong Council environmental program focused on bush regeneration and maintaining our local bush areas. The boys focus on planting and looking after new trees and native species to boost the local biodiversity; remove invasive species such as lantana; and clear up soft plastics and other waste from the bush. By putting this into action in your own home we can help to clean up Australia one piece of rubbish at a time.

Composting

Composting is a natural process of recycling organic matter (e.g food scraps) into a valuable fertilizer that can enrich soil and plants. This will help in retaining moisture and suppressing plant diseases and pests. Composting reduces the need for chemical fertilizers.This encourages the production of beneficial bacteria and fungi that break down organic matter to create humus (Top layer of the soil), a rich nutrient-filled material; Composting at home is quite simple. All you really need is a composting bin or a place to store all the food scraps and a small container to store the food scraps that gets emptied into the bin once a week.

Nude Food Revolution

Nude Food is designed to make it easier to reduce packing, reduce waste, keep food fresh and promote a healthier lifestyle. The aim is to encourage Australians to pack nutritious, environmentally friendly lunches for work and school, promoting healthy eating and rubbish free living.

The benefits of packing a rubbish free lunch are wide-ranging:

• Reducing your environmental footprint
• Teaching children about the need to reduce, re-use and recycle
• Having fun creating delicious lunches and snacks
• Looking after your health
• Promoting rubbish free days in school
• Providing parents/caregivers with an easy lunch packing solution.

Soft plastics (Return to store Woolworths / Coles )

Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances soft plastics which include the REDcycle wrapping has had to be suspended. This is unfortunate as this program has saved more than 3600 tonnes of soft plastics going into landfill since their program began in 2011.This is the equivalent to 900 elephants and includes chip packets, shopping bags and cling film.

It is hoped that it will take about 12 months for this program to again be up and running, so hopefully this time next year we can also add soft plastics to our recycling and make the world a better place.

Yours in recycling
Cooper Newell-Glaser and the EcoERC Team (Sustainability Prefect)