Riverside Rewards - Justin's Project

Riverside Primary School have stepped right up and planned three projects. Wonderful news! Yesterday I visited the school and presented Justin with his wormfarm and worms in front of the whole school. I think Justin was pretty excited. I am going to be his Doing More With Less Mentor because I have a wormfarm too and we can share the stories of our worms. Hey, Justin, I think some of my worms are having babies because they have a white band around their tummy! Is that right? Hey - thanks to Alcoa Foundation for the wormfarm and the worms!

I look forward to sharing my worm stories with you too! From Cat

North Parmelia Primary School

North Parmelia Primary Sustainability ideas

Challenges

Bins
• Money issues
• People might put the wrong thing in the wrong bin
• Damage to bins - kicked over

Wrapper free Wednesday
• Convincing people to do it
• Finding things that are wrapper free

Worm farm
• Keeping them moist
• People put the wrong thing in the compost bins
• People going in and taking out the worms

Opportunity - To promote in our school• Classroom competitions - the winning class will receive a trophy and a certificate
• Inform others using posters and videos
• Workshops

What do we need?• Coloured bins
• More worm bins/ big worm farms
• Prizes
• Certificates
• Money
• People that say yes

MK Rejects Plastic Name Tags

At the Doing More With Less Sustainability Roadshow Mat from Medina Primary School did an audit on some of the resources MK was using at the Roadshow. Kids designed some new games that were waste free and suggested in future we source a new chocolate product that is not wrapped in packaging. Even the plastic name tags came into question. So this morning the MK team counted all the plastic names tags that had been returned for reuse. The team had purchased a box of 200 name tags in 2010. In 2012 after the last Roadshow there were just 6 left, so MK will no longer buy these non recyclable items. We will simply have to find an eco friendly way to identify people. Any suggestions?

South Coast Baptist College

South Coast Baptist College Teams - Go Team!

Medina Primary School

Medina Primary School Team! Go team!

Calista Primary School

Calista Primary School Team! Go team!

Problem:

Too many food scraps going into the green rubbish bin at school

Solution:
To create a worm farm and compost heap
We would like to create colour-coded bins

Challenges:
Finding a place to have the worm farm



Opportunity:

• Raising money
• Reducing rubbish to land fill
• Building the worm farm and compost heaps

What do you need?
A place to put the worms, colour-coded bins, bigger worm farms, compost tumblers, worms, money, advertisements and soil.

Bertram Primary School

Bertram MK Team! Go team!

Our community group will be made up out of year 4,5,6 's to help keep our school environment clean and healthy in our swale and our school.we need to keep our environment in the swale clean because we have a lot of native animals and native plants living in there. After lunch and recess small groups will go out and pick up the rubbish. We will need buckets, gloves and buckets and coloured vest so students and staff can identify us when we are walking through the school.

We have worm farms, compost, chickens, solar panels. For fun we do kitchen, garden, music, sport and active dance. 

Alcoa can help us with more bins, colored vests, buckets, gloves and tongs.Can you give us some ideas and resources to keep our school and community clean. Could you please help us clean the outside areas such as, the swale, basketball courts, oval and playgrounds. It would help our school get cleaner. It would make a big difference to our school and hopefully be one of the best schools in Perth .

PLEASE help our SCHOOL

Top 14 tips to Reduce Waste

Kyle and Jarod from Bertram PS and Joshua and Heather from SCBC were part of the Millennium Kids Doing More with Less workshop in Kwinana. The day was about how to keep the local environment healthy. In the afternoon, we joined the Blogging team to write what we had learnt during the day.

3 Recycling Tips

The more we can recycle the less rubbish and pollution in our area.

1. Make sure you learn which products you can put in the recycling bins
2. Use old parts to make something new
3. Eat more organic foods and less processed foods (processed foods have more waste)

7 Tips to Reduce Plastic

We should reduce plastic because it doesn't break down and ends up polluting our oceans and in our rubbish tips.

1. Sew cotton bags to bag vegetables and fruit at the supermarket
2. Re-use the same plastic bags that you have
3. Use the supermarket recycling bags
4. Use one plastic for all fruits and vegetables instead of many
5. Buy the organic fruits that don't come in plastic bags
6. Reuse plastic bags and containers
7. Reuse plastic bottles to make plant pots

4 Worm Farming Tips

Worm Farms are a great way to use food scraps instead of throwing them in the bin.

1. No citrus fruit scraps (those can be put into compost instead)
2. Only use food waste
3. Make sure your soil is moist
4. Identify the types of worms that you have

We hope that these tips will help you to keep the environment clean by reducing your waste.

Marshmallow and Spaghetti Challenge

The Millennium Kids Doing More with Less workshop was held on the 15th August, 2012 at The Zone in Kwinana.  The event was about waste, recycling and looking after the environment.  There were 6 primary schools involved.

The Challenge
Students were involved in a team challenge with marshmallows and raw spaghetti.  The challenge was to build the tallest tower with these items without it falling down. Students had 5 minutes to complete the challenge. The challenge taught students to cooperate and work as a team.

Tua and Aron were part of the winning team, building the tallest standing tower.  The teams learnt:

• teams had to concentrate
• teams had to work together as one
• teams learnt about the different roles in a team challenge - leader, implementer, encourager, time-keeper 

This photo is the team with the tallest tower!



photo coming soon

Riverside Primary School Girls Have A GO!

Riverside Primary School Girls Have a Go!

Problem: After lunch every day there is a noticeable amount of litter, in particular plastic around our school.

Opportunity: We can research similar plans that have occurred in this school and others in the past.

Challenge: We feel like our principal, our student council leader, and some teachers will not support the idea because we are very busy. Also we have just started with a new timetable.

Solution: Our solution is to create a club at one classroom with two groups of two students called ‘litter monitors’ that go around every lunch time to collect the rubbish and then the school can make art out of it.

We Need: 6 rubbish claws, 6 buckets with lids.

Jamie's Project

Jamie and his team from Riverside Primary School were really concerned to hear that 25% of things that could be recycled ended up in landfill.

His team said, "The problem is 25% of recycled rubbish is sent to landfill when it could be remade into new things as what it was before. If we can recycle the 25% that is sent to the tip we can slow down production and the cost for new things."

The challenge is to write to the  Minister to get a meeting to discuss this issue and get approval and to find ways to reduce the recycle rubbish that is being wasted.

Jamie said," After a few years when recycling gets big we could use some spare money for replanting plants or help some country that are having a hard time.We need government approval for this idea that our team has created."

Leopold: Reducing Waste, Bringing Back Life

At Leopold Primary, they see the connections between different 'pillars' of sustainability, in this case being waste, water and biodiversity.  They plan to take on two projects - cleaning up and regenerating the storm-water overflow pit on their school grounds, and caring for their local wetlands park areas - Gateway Sanctuary.

Now, the two areas are full of rubbish and there is very little life.  Leopold students are going to be learning about frog ponds and wetlands areas in their environment classes.  They will participate in Clean Up Australia Day (Clean up Leopold Gateway Sanctuary Day) and National Tree Day.  They will de-rubbish, re-vegetate and bring these areas back to life!

The team has identified different groups that might help out - City of Greater Geelong, Greening Australia, Landcare and the Barwon Water Community Nursery and they have already been given permission to help to look after the areas.  They are hoping for some expert help with frog pond design and build and to teach kids how to grow native plants from seeds to re-vegetate the area.

Waste issues affect whole ecosystems and individual species.  It's great that Leopold is doing something to tackle these issues, both at their school and in their wider community!                                                  

Team Portarlington

Meet the Portarlington team:  Jack, Tom, Jackson Ross, Charlotte, Montana and Gabby.

They are concerned about the amount of rubbish and the lack of recycling at their school.  The team knows that before people will do something, they need to know more about the problem.  So they spoke at the school assembly, and gathered the waste from that one Friday onto a big tarp.  Here's what it looked like.

It make you realise just how much packaging there is when you see it all together like this!

Next the team is trying to tackle food waste.  They plan to put a food scraps bin in each of the 8 classrooms, and one in the staff room and a student from each room will empty the bin into the compost bin or worm farm each day. 

Next on the agenda, the team hopes to work out ways to recycle their plastic waste. 

Refuse, reduce, re-use,  recycle, re-think, realise...

Cutting Food Waste at North Geelong Secondary College

At the Doing More with Less Roadshow, students from North Geelong Secondary discovered that 40% of waste in the City of Greater Geelong is food waste.  And they plan to do something about it, starting with the waste in food technology at their school. 

The food technology room now produces five bags of waste every day and the students plan to cut this down to one.  The teacher in the room, Ms Martin, is excited by the idea and has agreed to help out, and the school principal has also given the go ahead.

North Geelong plans to have two bins in food technology - one for waste and one for food scraps.  They also aim to build two small vegetable patches, and fill them with herbs which will be used for cooking.  This will cut down on purchasing herbs wrapped in plastic, reduce food miles, and the herbs will be organic - good for people and good for the planet.  A bakashi will be used to help break down scraps quickly and the liquid generated from it will be used on the herb garden, and other gardens around the school.

The students also plan to educate staff and students about waste, particularly food waste in the kitchen, so hopefully lots of people will start using these ideas at home as well.

Great plan North Geelong!  Good luck!

Tunas Reduces Waste to Landfill During Exchange

Tunas Hijau members, from Surabaya, Indonesia stayed in Perth for 8 days during the Doing More With Less Sustainability Roadshow in Mandurah. They visited the Alcoa Wormfarm and Composting Facility, monitored their waste in the accommodation they were staying in, ensuring they were recycling and putting all food waste in the wormfarm. As part of their monitoring they sorted all the recycling and learnt about what could be and what could not be recycled in the Town of Mosman Park. They used reusable shopping bags provided to reduce the number of bags they took home after each shopping trip. They stopped approx 4 kilos of food waste going to landfill by using the wormfarm provided.

Justin's Personal Project

Justin was really surprised to hear how much waste went to landfill in the City of Mandurah. During the lead up to the Waste Free Lunch Challenge Justin discussed his lunchbox contents with this mother. He looked at ways of managing waste in his home. He discussed his ideas with the MK Team and the waste experts at the Doing More With Less Project  in Mandurah. He was so keen to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill he was presented with an MK Waste Award. In the coming weeks Justin will receive a wormfarm so he can set it up in his wormfarm at home and reduce the organic waste going into his bin.

Sarah Fordham from Alcoa of Australia was very impressed with his project idea and agreed to visit him at his school to present him with this special award.

Tunas Hijau Agrees on their Doing More With Less Project

After 8 days of their Doing More With Less Cultural Exchange the Tunas Hijau team have made a plan for their school projects and their personal waste challenge when they return to Java, Indonesia. The students visited Alcoa Wormfarms, met with the Centre for Water Research, University of Western Australia, helped Cottesloe Primary School set up an MK Chapter, met with CEO of City of South Perth,  joined MK on a tour of the Avon River and learnt how to manage recycling, composting and a worm farming in an Australian household during their visit.

The students will continue their work on the Brandis River, Java on their return and help educate local schools about composting and wormfarms. They will put in 1000 Biopori holes to increase water retention in the soil which encourages worms. They will promote these projects in 3 Junior High School, Surabaya, 26 Junior High School, Surabaya.

During their exchange the students were really interested to find that some plastic is not recycled in Perth. They helped separate the plastic they purchased during their stay. They looked for the recycle sign and saw the different numbers on the bottles. They will research which plastics are recycled in their city.

Cha - Cha and Fadila have set a personal goal to compost, recycle and reduce non recyclable plastic in their houses.

Taza, Hilmy and Jibran will attempt to reduce the amount of plastic they purchase.


On the last day of their visit the students reported to the Indonesian Consul General in Perth, Western Australia.

Tunas Hijau Go Plastic Free Shopping

The Tunas Hijau team, from Surabaya, Indonesia, were given one hour to buy lunch for the 35 participants at the Doing More With Less Sustainability Roadshow in Mandurah. Armed with a list of food to be purchased the students scoured the shops in the Mandurah shopping centre for items to go in the waste free lunch. Bread rolls, ham, avocado, lettuce, tomatoes, relish, capsicum, fruit went down a treat back at the Bortolo Pavilion where the team were given a huge round of applause for the efforts. Only one plastic item which the Deli girl put the ham in before they had time to reject it!

The challenge was set the day before because the students collected all the waste from the first day's lunch and decided they could reduce their waste by thinking about reducing the waste as they were purchasing items at the shop.

Justin's Idea - Recycling, education and chocolate!

Justin from Riverside had so many great ideas to contribute at the Roadshow in Mandurah and the very next day sent us a message with more ideas!  Here's what he wrote.

"Its justin rox from RSPS, i have an idea we could fundraise and use a box of chocolates to make money for recycling , a gold coin donation for each chocolate, and tell them whats been happening and about the landfill sites, informing them to put the right things in the yellow lided bin's and hopfully educate them to recyle properly by giving them the information on a sheet of re-cycled paper with there chocolate.  
 
From Justin"

Learning about Alcoa Wormfarms

Students from Dawesville Catholic Primary School and Tunas Hijau Indonesia visited the Alcoa Wormfarm and Composting site at Pinjarra on Day One of the Mandurah Doing More With Less Sustainability Roadshow. Scott, from Alcoa showed the students the process of collecting the food waste from the canteens, through the sorting process, composting and wormfarms set ups. Students photographed the whole process and found out how much waste was collected and composted in this way, saving Alcoa a whole lot of waste that would have otherwise ended up in their landfill site. Scott showed the students things that are put in the waste collection sites at Alcoa - some can be recycled, some can be composted and put in the worm farm and some  things go straight to landfill. The kids had a great chat to Scott about making behavior gains through education. The kids plan to create projects at their school and plan to share their challenges and solutions with Scott. Schools in the Doing More With Less program will have an opportunity to visit the site with their class after the Roadshow to lean more about the wormfarm and composting process.