Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
As part of the school’s continued efforts to achieve Project Zero, the Eco Committee has made several more small but significant environmental changes this term.
As well as our battery collection point outside the library, we now have crisp packet collection points in the canteen and Sixth Form common room. These can be used for any packaging with metallic lining, such as most chocolate bar, popcorn and cereal bar wrappers to ensure they recycled properly and responsibly, rather than contributing to landfill. We continue to reduce our plastic use as a school: this month, we persuaded the catering team to dispense with individual single use plastic containers for cheese and tuna, which are now served from large bowls in both the canteen and the Sixth Form common room. We have already implemented plant-based compostable Vegware to replace polystyrene lunch boxes and plastic cutlery. Next on our radar are individual plastic condiment packets: once current supplies are used up, we plan to introduce bottles of sauces like ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise instead.
We continue to encourage all girls to bring a reusable water bottles to school as one of our many projects for the near future is to phase out the plastic bottles currently available to buy in the canteen. We believe this is an important step forward as plastic bottles require up to 700 years to dissolve – 80% of plastic bottles never get recycled and, what’s more, 90% of the cost of bottled water is the bottle itself. We are really excited about our plans for our upcoming eco-week, which will take place the week commencing Monday 20th January. Some of our many ideas include a meat free week, external eco speakers and eco workshops, clothes and books swaps, a themed non-uniform day and David Attenborough documentary screenings at lunch. The Junior School are hoping to run similar initiatives alongside.
Meanwhile, Upper Sixth students from the Eco Committee also attended an Environmental Sustainability Conference at Highgate last month, focusing on how the younger generation can play their part in combating the looming environmental crisis. The girls heard from a wealth of inspiring speakers, learned about sustainability-related career paths and shared ideas about implementing effective initiatives at school, galvanised by the words of Greta Thunberg: “You must take action… because giving up can never ever be an option.”
The Eco Committee would like to thank the whole school community for their continued support of Project Zero, a pupil-led initiative to significantly reduce the school’s environmental impact by our 150th anniversary in 2026. Inspired the pupils, Mrs Bingham has launched a new eco club this term, encouraging the school whole community to make 365-day environmental pledges; she kick-started the initiative by committing to purchasing no new clothes for an entire year.