Let's Celebrate!

To all our dedicated teachers and school staff,

Welcome back to term four. Many schools use this term to consolidate their key values and learnings while winding down towards the end of the year. We know it has been a big and busy year for all our school staff. We are here to support you and celebrate all you have achieved!

This term we are sharing year-long success stories and celebrating the schools that achieved five- and 10-year accreditation. We are also excited to launch new online videos and share some tips to help you keep your worm farms in tip-top shape.

WasteSorted Schools is coming soon...

Over the next few months, Waste Wise Schools will transform our logo and brand. We will officially launch as ‘WasteSorted Schools’ in 2022. As WasteSorted Schools, we will continue to support schools across WA with meaningful resources, activities and messages around waste avoidance and recovery. The new look will see the school program closely align with other WasteSorted programs to create consistent waste messages as students move through school and out into the community.

We look forward to continuing to help all WA schools and students get their WasteSorted.

As you notice changes in our branding, signs and promotions over the coming months, we would certainly love to connect with you. Feel free to reach out with any thoughts, requests or comments.

Accreditation

Accreditation is the key to the long-term success of many Waste Wise Schools. We would like to extend a huge thank you to all the teachers who responded to our feedback survey on the accreditation process. Your information helps us to keep improving the Waste Wise Schools program!

Here's what you had to say:

“The accreditation process helps to collate all of the things we have achieved around the college but also show some of the places we can improve on.”

John Curtin College of the Arts

“It's a celebration and acknowledgement for the school and provides access to useful resources.”

Newborough Primary School

“To involve students in reduce, reuse, and recycle. Teaching them lifelong skills of loving a more sustainable life.”

Donnybrook District High School

“We have been accredited for over 10 years now and we did this to lead by example - you can't teach it if you don't practice it.”

Safety Bay Primary School

“Makes us reflect and audit what we are actually doing as opposed to what we 'think' we are doing.  Helps us maintain commitments and set new goals and celebrate progress.”

Bold Park Community School

“It ensures we do our best to have a green, waste wise school and encourages us to continually work to improve our school.”

West Byford Primary School

“We are now more mindful of how much waste we produce each day and we are now finding more ways to reduce this.”

Mundijong Primary School

 

Congratulations to the winners of the random draw: Beeliar Primary School and Safety Bay Primary School.

Congratulations to the following schools for achieving five years' accreditation as a Waste Wise School!

·       Bridgetown Primary School

·       Byford Primary School

·       Christmas Island District High School

·       Deanmore Primary School

·       Forrestfield Primary School

·       Harrisdale Primary School

·       Lynwood Senior High School

·       Margaret River Primary School

·       Mount Tarcoola Primary School

·       North Balga Primary School

·       North Fremantle Primary School

·       Ocean Road Primary School

·       Settlers Primary School

·       Sowilo Community High School

·       St Anthony’s School (Wanneroo)

·       St Paul’s Primary School (Karratha)

·       Sutherland Dianella Primary School

·       Two Rocks Primary School

·       Victoria Park Christian School

Congratulations to the schools who achieved 10 years' accreditation as a Waste Wise School!

 ·      Bannister Creek Primary School

·       Beaconsfield Primary School

·       Beeliar Primary School

·       East Manjimup Primary School

·       Highgate Primary School

·       Hillarys Primary School

·       North Parmelia Primary School

·       Roseworth Primary School

·       South Kalgoorlie Primary School

·       St Damien’s Catholic Primary School

·       St Helena’s Catholic Primary School

·       West Busselton Primary School

·       Westminster Primary School

·       Winterfold Primary School

·       Yale Primary School

Regional WA

Kalgoorlie-Boulder Urban Landcare Group (KBULG) and the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder teamed up to provide three lucky schools with the chance to reduce their organic waste going to landfill by composting.

Hannans Primary School started this process with a waste audit in Term 2 with Miss Skellett and her year 3/4 class. The data showed that food waste was one of the highest waste streams in the school.

Miss Skellett attended a workshop at KBULG to learn all about composting to prepare for receiving the free composting equipment.

In Term 3, KBULG representative Gabrielle Scannell and the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder Waste Education Officer, Kristy Lamont, attended a whole school assembly where they presented Miss Skellett and the school with their free composting kit. It included two compost tumblers, compost buckets for every classroom, a collection trolley and pick-up tools. The school can now start diverting fruit and vegetable scraps from landfill by composting them for their garden. We can’t wait to hear how their new initiative goes!

School Success Stories

Many inspiring teachers have made significant changes to their schools this year! We love celebrating everything our schools do so make sure you celebrate what you have achieved this year!

Aspriri Primary School

Following staff’s attendance at the Waste Wise Skills workshop in Term 1, Aspiri Primary School implemented the O.S.C.A.R. (Our School Cares About Recycling) Award. This award is given out every fortnight at assembly to the class which has been the most successful at recycling. The Year Four Green Team use a checklist to monitor the progress of paper and soft plastic recycling in each class in the school. What a great idea to motivate the whole school!   

Cloverdale Primary School

After running a waste audit in Term 1, Cloverdale Primary School set up three waste sorting stations with four bins each to sort beverage containers, soft plastics, fruit and vegetable scraps, and general waste, diverting the first three streams from going to landfill.  To help students learn how to sort into the new stations, the school’s Green Team (made up of students) visited classes to give a PowerPoint presentation designed by the science teacher, Mr Luxton. During a series of student assemblies, Mr Luxton also introduced the new Containers for Change bin for beverage containers by giving it a voice and personality. Six months later, four students helped promote the sorting message by enacting a skit at assembly using bins as puppets. The skit dramatised the story of a girl who was told off by the bins for dumping food and liquid waste in the recycling bins, and then asked to recycle properly.

When the stations were introduced, members of the Green Team helped students sort their waste at lunchtime. For 15 weeks, the Green Team also audited the Containers for Change bin to remove bottle lids and transfer the containers to the skip bin. The team then shared any sorting problems with the rest of the students at fortnightly assemblies, which led to fewer errors and improved sorting over time. We love these creative ways to motivate the student body.

West Greenwood Primary School

A second waste audit showed that West Greenwood Primary school successfully reduced waste to landfill! The school received a $4000 Waste Wise Schools grant this year to fund a new vegetable garden so that students could grow and cook fresh produce. It also set up whole school composting using fridge-style worm farms. Classes and eating areas now have designated compost bins and the Tidy Club students are responsible for collecting and emptying the fruit and vegetable scraps into the worm farms. The school even ran a competition for students to design beautiful illustrations promoting  sustainability which would be painted onto the worm farms. The second waste audit showed a reduction of fruit and vegetable scraps and several other waste streams in the landfill bin. What wonderful work!

NEW RESOURCES

We have just finished filming a series of videos on worm farming in schools. These videos will cover general information about worm farming; setting up a fridge worm farm; running and maintaining a worm farm; and troubleshooting. We are looking forward to sharing these resources with schools on our website in Term 4. Check out the latest news to see when they are available.

Waste Wisdoms

In the meantime, here are some helpful worm farming tips from Wally the Worm:

1.Worm farm leachate is best when used immediately. The beneficial bacteria will die if stored for more than 48 hours.

2. Store leachate in bottles without a lid to allow bacteria to breathe, and keep the bottles in a dark and shady area.

3. Consider making worm tea with worm castings, which is superior to worm leachate. There are many easy recipes online.

4. Worm castings are full of beneficial bacteria, but they will be killed by UV light. Store them in the dark in a breathable bag or dig them into the soil straight away!

5. Worms love to eat carbon too, so add shredded newspaper to your worm farm for some roughage!

6. Be careful not to overwater worm farms - they should be moist not sodden. Worm farms already produce a lot of moisture from the fruit and vegetable scraps.

National Recycling Week is around the corner! Many people choose to be involved at home, at work, or at school using the free resources from Recycling Near You. 

The East Metropolitan Regional Council is running a tour of the Regional Resource Recovery Centre in Canning Vale.

Grab tickets here and get ready to see: The green waste facility, where garden waste is turned into mulch; The materials recovery facility, where recyclables are separated, baled and sold for reuse; and the Education Centre, where we have lots more resources to help you to reuse, reduce and recycle!

Bottle Top Hill

Bottle Top Hill (BTH) is a volunteer-run public drop-off point for plastic bottle lids. The team actively engage with the community to create awareness and  promote waste avoidance.

Many changes have occurred in plastic lid recycling since BTH was founded in April 2021, including collecting by colour, polymer type and now by mixed form. Council drop-off points have also been created and Containers for Change now accepts and recycles lids from eligible 10c containers. BTH helps to educate the community about these changes and how best to recycle lids at their monthly drop-off events.

BTH incorporates a theme at event. Some schools now align with these themes. In Term 1, the theme was ‘Rot/compost & regeneration: when school gardens & ponds may need a makeover’. Term 2 was ‘Respect, rethink, reclaim’. Term 3 was ‘Refuse (Plastic Free July), reduce, reuse’. Term 4 is ‘Repair, recycle and recognition’ – where they will acknowledge all the teams and participants who helped to keep their Waste Wise programs sustainable.

BTH also works with schools and P&C groups to inspire change in the broader community. Some of their projects include:  

· Waste Sorting Station at Attadale PS Library

· Party Pack for Hire at Palmyra Primary P&C

· STEM projects using lids, coffee pods & bread tags with East Victoria Park Education Support Centre

· Father’s Day gifts made by students from granulated bottle tops at Winthrop Primary School

Visit Bottle Top Hill’s Facebook page to find out more

WasteSorted Schools Grant

The Waste Wise School program will launch a new grant program in February 2022 as part of the next round of grant funding in Term 1. The new WasteSorted Schools grants make the eligibility criteria and application process simpler for all schools, encouraging even more schools to reduce their waste. Grants of up to $5,500 will be available. All accredited Waste Wise Schools are eligible to apply.

We will provide more information about the new process to schools in Term 4, 2021.

Keep an eye on our website and your inbox for more information.

We look forward to supporting your school to submit a grant application.

Incursions

Waste audits

Schools are already booking waste audits for Term 4. Audits are available across Perth metro areas and the Kalgoorlie-Boulder region.

 

WasteSorted Race

Schools are loving the WasteSorted Race excursion to help students learn the importance of sorting their waste! Tailored to your school’s waste system, this 30-minute incursion will cover:

·         why sorting waste is important

·         the different colour bins waste is sorted into at home and school

·         a practical application of waste sorting with a fun interactive race.

Many schools book our metro incursion officers for 2-3 hours to run multiple classes through this engaging activity! 

 

Visual Bin Audits and School Waste Assessments

Schools are saving money by improving their waste systems.

Our Visual Bin Audit and School Waste Assessment tools help schools to assess their waste services by identifying the type and number of bins available and where services can be adjusted.

Schools find it helpful to book an incursion officer to help use these new tools for the first time.

 

An incursion officer is available in Perth metro and Kalgoorlie-Boulder areas.  Regional schools can also contact Waste Wise Schools for phone or online support to use this resource.

To organise a booking please contact us:

  • Suburbs north of the river: Rosie Bruce rosie.bruce@dwer.wa.gov.au
  • Suburbs south of the river: Belinda Bloxsome b.bloxsome@aaeewa.org.au  (AAEE Waste Wise Support Officer)
  • Kalgoorlie-Boulder area: Gabrielle Scannell nursery@kbulg.org.au (KBULG Support Officer)

My dad told me to take out the garbage, but I said no....

I refuse