As the Spring term winds down, and we all look forward to a well-earned two weeks off, the South Hunsley Eco-Committee would like to update you on what we’ve been doing over the last three months.

This term, we’ve had a particular focus upon one of our three major goals for this year: litter and the reduction of plastics. In order to do this, we’ve continued our activities as part of the ‘Plastic Free Schools’ initiative, as well contributing to the national eco-review with new questions focused upon increasing school sustainability. As well as this, we have been contacting our local council, and taking an active role in cleaning up our school site.

Litter is a major problem across the planet, yet tends to be ignored. However, the masses of discarded crisp packets, empty plastic water bottles and non-reusable bags can have a major impact upon the environment, disintegrating into microplastics that permeate the food chain and harm the wildlife that consumes them. In order to do our part in combating this problem, the Eco-Committee has done a litter pick, collecting and disposing of any rubbish or trash on the school site. This is incredibly important as an active strategy for reducing plastic waste entering the environment, but on its own won’t make a lasting difference. That’s why we have to keep ensuring that our litter is correctly disposed of, using the bins around the school site. This way, we can not only protect the environment, but keep our school looking its best. Furthermore, we have also written a letter to our local councillor, asking for further support for anti-littering initiatives on both a local and regional level. This ongoing dialogue is important for making progress on not just the issue of litter, but on other major environmental problems, such as declining wild space and climate change.

The Plastic-Free Schools initiative has been a major focus for the committee this term as well. This is a national programme designed to reduce single-use plastics in school environments, and to suggest new ideas on how to improve material sustainability in education centres across the country. As part of this programme, the committee has been reviewing single-use plastics in the school canteens, classrooms and grounds, and investigating potential sustainable replacements to less eco-friendly packaging currently in use.

Though this term has been shorter than usual, the Eco-Committee has still been busy combatting plastic pollution on the school site. If you would like to join the Eco-Committee, come along to our meeting every Friday lunchtime in LF26, in the Sixth Form building, or ask Miss Acaster to add you to our Teams page. Thank you for reading.

Litter Pick

On Friday 15 March we held an afterschool litter pick as part of the national “Big School Clean Up” initiative, this had a brilliant turn out, we are very thankful to all of the volunteers. After fueling ourselves with a cookie, we set off on the litter pick. The pupils were very shocked to see the amount of litter spread throughout the school site, from bottles to crisp packets to pencil cases. After an hour of picking, we unfortunately collected six big bags worth of litter, and knew there would still be some litter on the site. At South Hunsley we strive to be a litter free school, but can only achieve this once we all work together. The amazing volunteers made a step towards this and hope they will have an easier job next time with less litter to collect.

Written by Lonnie H, Year 12