Dederang Primary School Fights War on School Waste

School: Dederang Primary School

Grant Round 2

Locations: Victoria
Category: Recycling and improving waste management practices

Our project aimed to reduce the amount of waste ending up in our school landfill and recycle collection bins each fortnight. We created a recycle station where school waste could be sorted into 10 collection bins: soft plastic (REDcycle), chicken scraps, worm farm, garden waste to mulch, compost, paper for shredding, cardboard for garden beds, items that can be reused or repurposed, general waste and recyclables. Our students loved learning how to grow vegetables from food scraps and seeds. Students saved the tops of root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips, celery and beetroot in the school cooking program and placed these into the green house to encourage regrowth of roots and foliage. They later planted them into the schools vegetable garden. We created a paper log/brick processing workstation next to our mud kitchen so that students can turn shredded paper into paper logs. We plan to sell these to our local community during the colder months. Proceeds from the paper logs will support future upcycling projects. By carefully sorting our waste we were able to further reduce the amount of waste ending up in our bins. We now put out one general waste and 1 recycling bin per month!

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