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 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.

• 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.