Woodham Burn Primary is aiming to reduce its energy consumption, its paper usage; and promote the issue of food waste.

On Tuesday this week a group of children formed an Eco-warrior team. They met for the first time on Tuesday and had a full agenda: paper recycling; energy monitoring; future ideas and an action plan.

The idea of setting up the eco group is to reduce wastage across school in classrooms, offices, out of school club, staffrooms and throughout the school premises, as well as encouraging the same within the local community. This will have many benefits, including the reduction in waste paper (hence saving valuable trees). They will also be monitoring the use of energy by making sure that lights are not left on at the end of the school day (hence saving energy) and of course, all of the initiatives will save the school money because we will be purchasing less paper and paying less for electricity because we are using less.

Ms Graham, who runs the Eco-Warriors team at the school, said: “I’m passionate about caring for the environment and it is so important to get the pupils to care”.

The school works with a company called Warrens who collect and recycle food waste. Warrens were kind enough to sponsor 15 recycle boxes, one for each room in school. Richard Skelton, Senior Sales Manager for Warrens came along to the Eco-Warriors first meeting and was very impressed and also eager to support the work of the group. He said “We believe it is crucial to teach children about the importance of recycling and how each of them can contribute to a greener world for everyone. It was brilliant to see the enthusiasm and hear about how the Woodham Burn Eco Team are going to adopt a more sustainable approach for recycling paper in the school. Well done guys”.

Richard invited the children to attend Warrens food recycle plant and also said “Look forward to seeing you all at our Food Recycling Facility where you can see how we convert the plate waste from your school dinners to produce clean green energy for the local community”.

The next step is applying for the International Eco-Schools Green Flag Award – watch this space.