DofE Gold Goes Green
Large numbers of our pupils complete the Duke of Edinburgh Award each year. This term, a group of Gold participants decided to tackle an added challenge: to make their expedition as environmentally-friendly as possible.
Inspired by the recent global conversation about the environment and by the incredible natural landscapes we were walking through, our group chose an environmental theme for our project. We decided to try to use as little single-use plastic as possible on our expedition in order to minimise our negative impact on the environment around us. This was a real challenge as a expeditions usually involve a lot of plastic, due to the need to package food securely to prevent leaks – but we discovered how many environmentally-friendly alternatives there are, if you are willing to put in a little effort.
While discussing ideas on our practice expedition, our assessor suggested buying re-usable, silicone ziplock bags to store food and small items. These re-usable alternatives were great for storing our meals and snacks, and were still in perfect condition when we came back. This small, affordable switch helped us to reduce our plastic usage considerably.
Before our expedition, we went to the Bulk Market, a zero-waste market in Hackney. Since we were making our own pesto and tomato sauce and most of our own snacks, we only needed to buy pasta, peanut butter, dried fruit and nuts. We brought our own Tupperware and silicone ziplock bags in which to store these items. Shopping in this way, however, proved to be rather expensive, as it was hard to gauge exactly how much we needed. For the remaining items, we went to a local Budgens, which had recently introduced a plastic-free scheme.
We made our own granola bars, using ingredients from the bulk store, and then packaged them in our ziplocks. All of our other snacks we bought either from the bulk store (e.g. nuts, dried fruit etc.) or – in the case of snacks which we could not get without plastic packaging – from supermarkets in normal-sized packages and then split them into portions rather than buying pre-portioned packages, which use yet more plastic.
On our second day in the Yorkshire Dales, we stopped at the famous viewing point, Malham Cove, before beginning our descent to the campsite. Malham Cove is a 70 metre-high cliff of white limestone, formed by a waterfall carrying meltwater from glaciers more than 12,000 years ago. Unfortunately, many of the tourists had left behind a lot of rubbish, disposing of it in the deep, narrow gaps between the slabs making up the limestone pathway. Using a pair of walking sticks we were able to retrieve some of this rubbish, including sweet wrappers and crisp packets. We picked up as much as we could along the limestone path, stored it in our backpacks and then disposed of it properly at the campsite. In this way we made a small but visible positive impact on the area and also removed waste that was potentially hazardous for the local wildlife.
Rebeca, Orla, Rosie and Isobel, who successfully completed their expedition, are among 35 Sixth Formers currently working towards their Gold Award; dozens of Year 11 girls have already signed up to start the Gold Award when they turn sixteen, testament to the popularity of the scheme at South Hampstead.