Thea, UVI and leader of St Mary's Eco-Group has shared an update on progress towards gaining a Green Flag Award.

"This term Eco-group have been meeting every fortnight, discussing new ideas and making great progress towards the ‘Eco-schools award’. The three areas we have been focusing on specifically are waste, plastics, and energy.

With the hope of reducing food waste in houses, we are introducing food waste bins in sixth form kitchens from January onwards. We will be trialling this with sixth form houses but hope to spread this initiative throughout the whole school. Through posters we will be ensuring girls know how to use the bins appropriately, preventing the food waste becoming contaminated with non-compostable materials. We hope this will increase engagement and encourage girls to take a more active role in reducing their waste.

Earlier this term we spoke in chapel about the impact of paper waste, and more specifically about the importance of reducing our printing. Since then, we have launched an inter-company printing competition aiming to raise awareness of the impact excess printing has on our environment. We hope through posters providing girls with tips on how to reduce their printing and frequent reminders of the competition, our paper usage as a school can be reduced.

To reduce our plastic waste, we have signed up to an organisation called Terracycle which recycle ‘hard to recycle’ materials. The programme we are using focuses on recycling all types of pens, from whiteboard pens to highlighters. Once collected, the pens are cleaned and separated by material type. The fibres and plastics are then recycled into raw formats that manufacturers can use to make new products. We now have collection bins in the Staff Room, Florence Dyas, Reception, and St Margarets’. This is great way of reducing the volume of plastic waste ending up in landfill. We also have plans to introduce refill stations for shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the school shop to reduce our consumption of plastic bottles.

Throughout the term we have met with the Bursar to discuss the school’s plans for improving our energy usage. Electric car charging points have now been installed, with plans for two more to be installed outside Plumer Wing. There are plans to install solar panels over the next year on the roofs of the theatre, Florence Dyas, Helen Wright, and Plumer Wing. The school is also very keen to transition to using LED lights which will be a great way to reduce our electricity consumption.

Recently Eco-group visited Grist Environmental, a leading waste management and recycling specialist in the south-west, used by St Marys’ Calne to collect most of our waste. We had a very interesting tour around the site, learning about the processes of separating and sorting the waste to ensure the maximum amount of material is recycled and recovered. This was a great opportunity to understand what happens to our waste once it leaves the school site, and we were encouraged to see the waste being appropriately processed instead of being directed to landfill.

We’ve made lots of really positive progress this term and hope to continue this further next term with more of a focus on monitoring the new initiatives to ensure they’re working effectively."