Waste Audit

Today Room 8 and Room 7 did a Waste Audit. Angela from the Hastings District Council came to help us separate a weeks worth of school waste into categories. We had 2 1/2 wheelie bins full of waste to sort into different categories. We were shocked by a lot of the results. 

Type of Rubbish	Rubbish Found	Total Weight of this type	% of total rubbish weight	Notes
Paper		2.5kg	11%
Food Packaging	Zip lock bags, glad wrap, chip packets, muesli bar wrappers	1 Kg	4%	2 bins filled
Recyclables	Yogurt pots, bottles, cans, tins, coffee cups	2.2kg	10%
Food Scraps	Whole sandwiches, fruit	9.4kg	43%
General Waste		7kg	32%
Milk Cartons				18
Zip Lock Bags				20+ in first bag
Food Scrap Bins		7kg

Angela shared with the children valuable information relating to what was found throughout the audit.

- Soft plastics (zip lock bags, plastic bags, chip bags, muesli bar wrappers and glad wraps) can not be recycled and go to the landfill. 

- Zip lock bags are able to be reused multiple times. 

- Yogurt Pots are able to be cleaned and recycled - look for the recycling triangle on the bottom.

- Some takeaway coffee cups can be recycled - look for the recycling triangle.

- If you don't like what is in your sandwich or lunch take it home and tell whoever makes your lunch. 

The children were incredibly surprised by the quantity of waste we produce and the amount of food scraps that was making its way into the bins heading to the Transfer Station.Lots of whole sandwiches!

 We have waste food buckets in our classroom, and in the lunch area; and paper recycling - it is now our job to inform the school and develop an action plan to help reduce the waste we send to the Transfer Station each week.