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.
  • 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 topicEcobricks club ws 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.
  • 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. 

  • 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.

 Greening Tetbury w    Plastic free schools logo blue

  • leaf
  • royal
  • dolphin
  • sheep
  • heart
  • balls
  • butterfly