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Wipe Out Waste
Reduce, Re-use, Recycle – Nude Food
Blackwood Primary School’s three year journey
2015 - 2018
Blackwood Primary School has a long history of trialing ways to reduce the size of its environmental footprint.
Over the past three years the amount of waste the school generates has been reduced by 67% through awareness campaigns, educational programs and changing habits including:
Over the past three years the amount of waste the school generates has been reduced by 67% through awareness campaigns, educational programs and changing habits including:
- Environmental Units of Inquiry on reducing waste
- ABC Behind the News awareness programs
- Staff and students visiting other schools to observe programs in place.
- Kesab working with students to analyse the amount of waste generated and develop ways of reducing our environmental footprint.
- Student action teams surveying their classes on best ways to reduce the waste.
- Emu parades.
- Picking up papers as a consequence of behaviour.
- Limiting the eating of food to designated areas.
Outcomes of the education program – 2017
Concerns from staff and students
Nude Food became an initiative after an educational campaign by DECD, visiting several schools and staff/student discussions 2018
Term 3 2018
Term 4 2018
- All organic waste is now composted and each class has monitors who manage it.
- The Green team manages the vegetable garden and the composting process.
- Recycling bins were introduced in classes and the office.
- Year 6/7 Students run the paper recycling program.
- “War on Waste” education program is a feature of environmental learning this year in primary classes.
Concerns from staff and students
- While organic and clean paper recycling had been addressed the amount of packaging associated with snack foods continued to be of major concern.
- Too much packaging was finding its way into the school environment, the gully and Wittunga Botanical Gardens, in particular the lake.
- Education was not having the desired effect of reducing the waste.
- Too much waste was still going to the environment and landfill.
Nude Food became an initiative after an educational campaign by DECD, visiting several schools and staff/student discussions 2018
- The Student Action team had meetings to discuss the nude food initiative as a way of reducing waste.
- A decision was made to trial Nude Food Days one day at a time during term one.
- The hope was that we could educate the parents and students to reduce the packaged food that students were bringing to school.
- The secondary spin off from introducing nude food was the marked increase in the quality of food that students were eating at recess and lunch.
- In order to give the initiative the best chance of success we had students eat their recess under supervision by class teachers in the class. This began at the start of term two.
- The downside of this was the amount of learning time that was used to supervise the eating. Approx. 1 hour per week.
- During term 3 it became evident that the majority of students had “converted” to eating nude food and there was a significant reduction of packaged food. Students who were bringing packaged food were encouraged to take their rubbish home.
- The reduction in packaged waste discarded at school has seen a reduction in rubbish around school and in Wittunga Botanical Gardens.
Term 3 2018
- The decision to have children return to eating outside at recess was made to regain the lost learning time.
- The concern, however, was that there may be a return to packaged food and that the waste in the environment would return to previous levels.
- The decision was made by staff to limit the area where children could eat package food from the whole of the green hard play to half and have the duty teacher supervise that area.
- The green hard play area between the main building and the gym/canteen was designated as the eating area for packaged food. Nude food could be eaten on the entire green hard play area.
- Most students sit around the canteen, in the outside foyer and on the benches at the front of the school to eat their recess.
- The designated area is not exclusive to students eating packaged food. These make up about 25% of the students that are in that area. The other 75% are students with nude food or those that have finished eating.
- Once the students have completed their packaged food and placed it in the bin or in their containers they can resume their play in any area of the school. Many elect to stay in the area playing.
Term 4 2018
- We look forward to the return of Kesab to evaluate how the school has managed its waste in time since their last audit in September 2015
We continue to encourage students and their families to support
the work of our school in managing waste more efficiently
and reducing our environmental footprint.
the work of our school in managing waste more efficiently
and reducing our environmental footprint.
This page was last updated on 31 August 2018. Content enquiries to Webmaster.