Emmanuel Catholic College has been an accredited WasteSorted School since 2012. The college runs a range of initiatives that reduce waste to landfill including clothing drives, organic recycling and Containers for Change collection.
In 2022, Jessica Milne, Director of Environmental Education, proposed the creation of a central recycling hub to the principal and P&F committee. This hub would enable the school community to drop off hard-to-recycle items such as batteries and aerosol cans. The college administration area already had a small project in operation; however, this project wasn’t running as efficiently as desired. The P&F committee allocated $15,000 for the construction of the Recycle Hub and successfully secured a WasteSorted Schools grant to cover the cost of the bins.
Construction was completed in March 2023. The Recycle Hub was launched in April by means of a house competition aimed at raising awareness within the school community. The Recycle Hub collects items from families before and after school every Thursday.
In just over a year, the college has collected:
- 30,000 bottle tops
- 10,682 containers
- 10,534 batteries
- 8,381 bread tags
- 1,390 aerosol cans
- 157 printer cartridges
- 152 light globes
- 70 oral care items.
Students can earn either Christian service hours or house points depending on the items they drop off. All money raised from Containers for Change is reinvested into other environmental initiatives at the school.
