Waste Savvy

Halsnead Primary School, Whiston have joined schools from across Merseyside that will benefit from a whole host of support activities to reduce their waste and become more resource efficient, thanks to a project being funded through the Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority (MRWA) and Veolia Environmental Services Community Fund.

The School Waste Action Programme (SWAP) project is managed by the eco resource network, who are a group of Merseyside based charities, and will offer schools hands on support to reduce their impact on the environment and to engage with and trial different ways to reduce their waste from purchasing to recycling.

More than 50 schools across Merseyside and Halton have applied to join the school waste action programme, and eight have been selected for one to one support.

The SWAP project will provide a dedicated officer to enable the whole school community to engage with and trial different ways to reduce their waste from purchasing to recycling.  The aim is to enable the eight SWAP schools to reduce their waste by up to 25% by May 2014.

The remaining forty plus schools won’t miss out though as they will be able to access other support to reduce waste including a workshop which will provide learning and networking experience to help schools create and embed a sustainable procurement plan.

Included in the support for all the schools will be the textile challenge, which enables the whole school community to get involved. A school assembly will launch a textile collection in each participating school and all kinds of textiles – from curtains to cardigans – can then be brought in for recycling with every item contributing towards a recycling payment to each school too.