Recycling and litter

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Recycling is a particularly important part of the Eco work at Ringwood. Eco Reps should be in charge of recycling in the Tutor Group and should have a copy of 'What goes where' available. They should also make sure that there is a REUSE box in their tutor room.  In July 2003, setting up paper recycling was the first major project the group undertook. Look at our first waste survey (2003) to see why this was so important! With the help of a grant from the PTA, and with assistance from key members of staff, a silver plastic bin was put in every room in the school. New Forest District Council agreed to supply and empty a skip once a week. Although Ringwood town's paper is now recycled, it is good to think that the Eco group probably contributed to this too. You could look at our 2006 paper survey to see what's happened! LATEST paper information. Changes, to give students complete responsibility for paper recycling, will take place in our long-standing arrangements on Friday 30th November. Eco reps will take the clear sacks from the silver bins to the skip outside the kitchen where the caretakers will ensure that sacks are emptied into the skip. They should they be returned to the classroom silver bin. There will be no more Monday collections after Monday 26th November.  On Friday 30th November, a third paper and litter survey will be carried out by a small team led by Mrs White.  We know that we are recycling more; 400% more than when we started! Is more best? We need to see how much has been reused and what type of paper is going into the recycling bins Well done to year 8s for selling scrap pads from reuse paper to staff. They made £16 for Children in Need  2007, which at 5p per pad, is a lot of pads!

What can we recycle? LOTS!  Click here to find out (a graphic version)  A complete list is here.

CHRISTMAS CARDS 2005/6 These were collected for recycling by the Woodland Trust. Once more, Ringwood collected Christmas cards for the Woodland Trust. The response was fantastic, particularly in tutor groups. Some groups have collected thousands of cards. Altogether, we collected 21 clear sacks of cards this year, doubling the quantity collected last year!

COMPOST  Making compost is a  great way of recycling organic matter. We have two bins and several departments have kitchen caddies in which they put apple cores, tea bags, banana skins etc

STAMPS Don't forget that Mrs Amey collects used postage stamps for Leprosy Mission. Any stamps are wanted - British or foreign, preferably with a small portion of envelope left on (about 5mm all round the stamp is sufficient). Students: there should be a plastic wallet in your tutor group for stamps. if there's not, ask your tutor to supply one. Throughout 2007, our stamp collections are supporting the RSPB's albatross appeal. There has been a tremendous response from students and, to date, teh RSPB has received four huge sacks of stamps.

CORKS Cork is scarce as it comes from cork oak trees. To throw away a cork therefore seems very wrong and we were pleased to find that various groups need recycled corks! Ours go to  Scrapstore in Totton.

BATTERIES Ordinary household batteries contain toxic heavy metals. It is actually illegal to dump them! At the same time, there is nowhere to put them and their components could be reused. Several sixth formers have researched batteries and found that there is nowhere near Ringwood that has battery collection. You can buy a collection bag and a firm will come to empty it - but that's not what we want. In 2007, we finally found somewhere to take batteries - to pass them on for stripping down and recycling. The Eco group  started to collect batteries!

PLASTIC BOTTLES The collecting bins are finally ready and the recycling of plastic bottles started in March 2005. When the bins are full, the bottles are transferred to a bottle skip.  On Eco Day in July 2005, several groups of Year 9 pupils (in maths, languages and art) found out that plastic bottles are still a major problem on the school site.  More recycling bins are needed, and some people have suggested that they are needed at key locations, such as the canteen, INSIDE school. Our bottle collection increased steadily in 2007 so that we are sure that our new bottle collection bins will be used!

MAJOR LITTER and RECYCLING SURVEY We carried out a litter survey, along with a recycling survey, when we set up the Ecoschools group, as part of our Environmental Review. We wanted to do a second audit and on July7th 2005, members of the Eco group from Years 7 - 10 worked hard to remove every scrap of litter from the school site. They joined forces with the class doing 'normal' litter collection and with a few members of a Year 10 Physics class. The litter from the site was sorted and weighed and the results were processed on Eco Day. Work continued after school as we wanted to do a further survey of the paper bins (see above). Paper collection seems to be going really smoothly, but we wondered whether it masked other problems ... and it did! The volume of paper sent for recycling has TRIPLED since we started recycling in June 2003. Another problem is that very little photocopying paper is used on the back before it's thrown out. Full results of the survey can be seen here. Another survey will take place on November 30th 2007

PLASTIC MILK BOTTLE TOPS In September 2005, Liz and Harriet  launched a new campaign to collect milk bottle tops. Don't throw away red, green, blue or WHITE plastic milk bottle tops as Naomi House, a children's hospice at Stockbridge, near Winchester, can raise money from them!  All you have to do is wash them and bring them into school. When we have enough we will arrange for them to be sent for recycling. We're collecting milk bottle tops that look like this!   NOTE that WHITE tops have been added to list list since we first started collecting Plastic milk bottle lids are then sent to a Portsmouth polymer regrinding company who then pay Naomi House by weight at the market price. They regrind the plastic lids and sell the granules into the plastics industry who use them to make bin liners, Wellington boots and all sorts of other items. The hospice receive about £60 per tonne. That's a lot of milk bottle tops! However, it works because a lot of people collect them. Remember, tops must be CLEAN and you must not put ANY other type of plastic bottle top in with the collection (even if it looks identical). If you do, the entire batch is regarded as contaminated and is thrown away. RESULTS OF THE FIRST COUNT on Weds 23 November: 9050.  February 2007: we are now collecting about 25 000 tops a week!  Thanks to all those outside the school who collect: we are enormously grateful. Please note that tops must be collected in clear sacks so that the ladies on reception can check for 'rogue' tops (for reasons, see above). Could you also ensure that tops are delivered during office hours rather than left on the doorstep in the middle of the night! OCTOBER 2007: Our MBT collection has extended far and white. The Portsmouth recycling firm has asked us what we're doing to make our recycling so successful!  One reason for success id that there are lots of subgroups now collecting for us too. We already know of groups in Bournemouth, Southampton. Lymington, new Milton,  Sway, Verwood and Salisbury.

PRINTER CARTRIDGES We have been collecting these for a long time: please take old cartridges to ICT.

MOBILE PHONES We have been collecting mobile phones for Action Aid, but have been asked whether to temporarily support the Blue Peter mobiles and coins appeal. This is being organised by Hannah and details will appear next week. (Week beginning 21st Nov). Posters should be displayed in tutor groups from Monday 28th November. Please take both mobiles and coins to reception. Children in Need collection. Forty mobiles were collected in the week preceding Children in Need Day. We have sent them all off to the Pudsey collection. At £5.00 each, this has raised another £200 to add to the school collection for Children in Need.

CDs and DVDs Do you or your family have old CDs that lurk at the back of a drawer? They may be free CDs that you've never used or they could be CD ROMs that you've finished with. Have you made enough bird scarers now? They can be recycled! Mr Hawkins, in the Music Department, collects old and unwanted CDs, CD ROMs and DVDs. Mrs Fanos sends these off for recycling: the director of a recycling firm conveniently drives through Ringwood about once a month! How lucky is that? In the past year, we have tripled the number of CDs and DVDs we are recycling.

POLYTHENE BAGS Thomas Davies has started a scheme for recycling polythene mail wrappers. these are quite difficult to keep tidy: they need to be kept flat or hung up by a peg! We have sent the first batch off and will see how this goes.