Success! – We have achieved the Silver Award, June 2008
Since October 2006 HMSG Eco-School Initiative has been promoting environmental issues throughout the school. Through the Eco-Committee we have surveyed the school, created an Eco-Notice board, Eco-Logo and Eco-Code. We have also raised awareness of energy conservation and collect waste paper for recycling.
We have been hard at work this year in our drive to gain the Silver Award. Our regular meetings have been well attended by pupils from Year 6 through to the Upper Sixth. Members of the Eco-Committee have carried out school surveys on litter, water, transport, healthy living, and the school grounds. The spring term Parent-Eco Survey proved very successful with a 120 returns. Follow this link to see the results of the survey.
Highlights of eco-summer activities are the Prep Garden Project, our Summer Eco-Project with the CDT Department (Mrs Clayton) making bird boxes and insect hotels during Monday and Tuesday lunchtimes. Also the Art Department’s tribal masks project which used recycled materials. This activity was part of the recent Year 8 Cross Curricular Activity Week.
Thank you for your old mobile phones
HMSG’s Eco-School Initiative and Geography Department have been busy again this year collecting unwanted mobile telephones, raising money for Oxfam’s ‘bRing bRing’ Campaign. Monmouth’s Oxfam shop has gratefully received the latest batch of phones, raising over £150 for the charity. Over three years we have collected 75 unwanted mobile phones.
After achieving the Silver Eco-School Award in June 2008 the Eco School Committee has spent the Michaelmas Term looking into other ways to make the school more eco-friendly. One idea we have pursued is selling an attractive, sustainable, eco-friendly substitute for plastic bags. After discovering that:
An average UK citizen uses 167 plastic bags a year, Only one in 200 bags is recycled, One plastic bag takes up to four hundred years to break down in landfill siteWe decided to make finding an alternative to plastic bags one of our main priorities. We launched an HMSG Eco-Bag design/logo competition in the Michaelmas Term and received some fantastic entries. We chose Elizabeth’s (Year 13) design for our eco-bag and after a great deal of background research managed to get our eco-bag manufactured on eco-friendly, unbleached cotton. We have been selling our eco-bags to pupils just before the Christmas break, and we are advertising them to parents in the end of term newsletter at a price of £4 each. Please invest in one and help us protect the environment!
Another priority of HMSG’s Eco-School Committee is to promote energy saving and increase the amount of recycling that occurs in the school. We advertised energy saving ideas around the school this term and will continue in the Lent Term. In addition we hope to provide further recycling bins around the school for plastic bottles and drinks cans. We have already started in the Sixth Form Café, which now has a bin for recycling drinking cans. We are also considering providing incentives for pupils to recycle their rubbish, such as prizes for the most enthusiastic recycler.
Alice, Year 13
