Caring for our Environment
At St Mary's we care for our enviornment and are working hard towards becoming a single-use plastic free school.
This will be a long term journey but we have already made many changes:
- Pupils and staff have refillable water bottles.
- We have made a conscious decision not to use glitter and to reduce the amount of laminating we do.
- Michael Hope, our uniform supplier, no supplies uniform in recyclable packaging.
- The PTFA no longer use cellophane wrapping at the Christmas Fayre. They also use environmentally friendly glitter, sell sweets in paper bags and will be swapping glow-sticks for minimal waste activities such as neon facepaint.
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Throughout the school we recycle cardboard, paper, plastic bottles and tins, food waste (from the kitchen, staffroom and classrooms) and printer cartridges.
- We have a clothes recycling bank which Tetbury residents can use to recycle clothing and also raise funds for the school.
- Children are learning about the impact of plastic in lessons. Last year one of the Year 4 topics was Eco Warriors and we ran an extra curricular Ecobrick club.
- Year 2 completed a litter pick and talked about it to the whole school in Service.
- Yoghurt, at lunchtime and Breakfast Club, is served from from one large container rather than individual pots.
- Caterlink (who provide our hot school lunches) have stopped using clingfilm.
- We have a recycling bin in the foyer for staff, children and parents to recycle used ink cartridges.
- We are working with the Greening Tetbury group.
- We have signed up to Surfers against Sewage Plastic Free Schools scheme - more information to follow.
- Cleaning products and liquid soaps are purchased in large containers and decanted into spray bottles/soap dispensers.
What we want to do:
- Work with Caterlink to reduce the amount of plastic used when our food supplies are delivered.
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The PTFA are researching fun and cost effective replacement to glows sticks and will also provide recycling bins for all plastic sweet wrappers and drinks bottles.
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Continue our discussions with the Schools Fruit and Vegetable scheme to encourage them to reduce the amount of plastic when packaging and delivering the fruit and vegetables.
- Work with parents to reduce the amount of single-use plastic in lunch boxes.