Rebecca Smith and Ryan Emmett help 'feed' the compost bin with food scraps and water.

When waste turns great

By

Kerri Carr

Playground food scraps help the garden grow.

Wentworth Falls Public School's compost system for food waste involves the whole school, said teacher-librarian Rosemary Lathouris. "We help maintain the school grounds by weeding, mulching and gathering leaves for use in our school compost bins where we recycle food scraps into garden compost," she said.

"In the playground students are encouraged to sort their rubbish by thinking: Is it food or paper? Put it in the bucket. Is it recyclable? Put it in the green metal bin. Is it rubbish? Put it in the blue bin," she added.

"Each morning students place nine [compost] buckets in the playground, including one in the teachers' staffroom," Ms Lathouris said.

"At the end of lunchtime the buckets are collected and every second day they are emptied.

"Using gloves, students take out plastic wrap (the main contaminant) leaving food scraps and paper from lunch orders.

"The canteen helpers also put their off cuts into a bucket on canteen days," she added.

Ms Lathouris said there are about 50-80 litres of scraps every second day.

The school has three vegetable plots and grows seasonal vegetables.

"Last summer we grew tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, basil and lettuce," Ms Lathouris said.

"Students planted the seeds or seedlings, mulched and watered if necessary and ate the produce raw, in most cases."

Many students picked the carrots, washed them and ate them.

"Almost ripe tomatoes were given to many classes to watch them ripen and then they were eaten by students," Ms Lathouris said.

"The potato harvest was cooked into a potato lunch special last term with assistance from several classes preparing ingredients and parent helpers cooking the food.

"Over the cold winter we are currently growing carrots and peas."

The school has made an active effort to reduce the amount of waste sent to the dump.

"We already recycle most of our paper and are working at the moment to get more containers recycled, for example cans, popper boxes and plastic drink bottles," Ms Lathouris said.

"Recycling containers is messy," she said.

"Milk drinks in plastic bottles and paperboard containers are often not emptied completely, as are fruit juice poppers. The senior students, assisting with recycling, empty the playground recycling bins weekly and squirt any liquid left in the poppers into the garden. Over time we hope students will take more responsibility for leaving their containers empty."

She explained recycling aluminium cans is easy because students tend to drink all the contents.

The school also wants students to learn and try to implement ways to lower their ecological footprint in the areas of water usage, gas and electricity usage.

"Most classes assign power monitors to turn off lights and heating when the class leaves the room," Ms Lathouris said.

"Teachers are encouraged to turn their gas heaters on two hours at a time so they can warm the room for a session and not continue to heat (or overheat) the room all day.

"Classes are reminded to keep their door and windows closed in classrooms where an air conditioner is used in the room.

"Water use is regulated by maintaining auto-turn-off taps so they can't be left running. Water is rarely used in the gardens because rainfall is sufficient and gardens are planted with hardy plants or long-standing existing plantings. Having the school rainwater tank connected to the toilets automatically saves the school all this water coming from the mains."

A lunchtime program called Planet Coolers is run for senior students.

"A parent, Sue Morrison, comes in one lunchtime per week and works with volunteer senior students on environmental topics. She has introduced them to energy saving monitors, exploring websites with useful information and ideas and lobbying our local state MP to get a clean energy bus for our local tourist industry."

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July 2010 contents