ECO Initiatives at Sacred Heart College

2020 Waste Wise Grant Proposal Success

Each year the ECO Hearts committee host an ECO day. In 2018 on ECO Day, the ECO Hearts carried out a whole school waste audit. The results (the sorted rubbish) were on display at lunch time for all students to see the amount of rubbish going to landfill every day. Other activities included demonstrations of making bin liners with newspaper and environment themed video clips were visually displayed for all students to see. As a result of the waste audit, the ECO Hearts agreed the waste from the Café was of most concern as most of the packaging could be recycled but instead it was discarded for landfill.

In May 2020, the P&F funded the two Recycling Stations which encourages recycling the packaging from the Café. Each recycling station has 4 colour-coded 120L wheelie bins – a light green bin for organics, a white bin for soft plastics, a yellow bin for co-mingled and a purple bin for hard plastics. These bins cover all types of packaging being discarded from the café ranging from wooden forks and chip packets to plastic drink bottles.

Along with plastics, this project will also enable food scraps and organics to be collected, which was the largest group by weight of waste identified in the waste audit. The organic waste will be collected and put into the compost bins which can then be used on the surrounding College gardens.

This year in 2021, the ECO Hearts will roll out a Litter Prevention Program – a 6-week campaign aimed at reducing the litter that does not make it into the bins. This program will begin with a litter audit and student survey about behaviours and attitudes towards waste.

The Year 12 Stewardship Captains will work with the Media Captains to develop a short video outlining the importance of recycling correctly and posted for students to view and to coincide with the launch of the Recycling Stations and the Litter Prevention program.

There are many ongoing recycling initiatives around the College which include:

  • Every class room and office in the College has a box for paper recycling which is collected fortnightly and a battery bin is available in ICT.
  • Containers for Change Scheme with City of Stirling
  • The Staff room, Home Economics department and Education Support departments all have a 240L co-mingled recycling bin and a GreenBatch bin for the collection of plastic bottles.
  • The ECO Hearts committee have introduced a campaign to collect plastic bottle lids and bread tags for recycling. The plastic bottle tops are being reused in an art project which is a 2m x 2m logo for ECO Hearts.
  • ECO Day in 2019 saw the launch of the “Just one Bottle” campaign in conjunction with the launch of the GreenBatch Schools recycling project. There were drive through options for parents to recycle plastic containers from home by dropping their plastic into the large bins in the ‘Kiss ‘n Ride’ drive-through. Students who walked to school and recycled plastic containers on their way into the college went into a raffle to win great ECO prizes.
  • The College is involved in the annual KAB Clean Up Australia Day where students receive credit towards their Christian Service Learning program.
  • All staff were gifted with a reusable ECO cup for use in the staff room and when ordering hot drinks from the Heart Café (a student run café).
  • All staff and students have the option to purchase a reusable water bottle in the college House colours from the uniform shop.
  • Tree planting and beach clean-up sessions have been conducted along local areas including Sorrento coastline and Whitfords Nodes with Councillor Mike Norman (Joondalup) as part of the Christian Service Learning program.

Other current initiatives around the College:

  • Level 2 Accreditation completed with Catholic Earthcare
  • Recycling of toner cartridges and fluoro light bulbs
  • ECO News noticeboard in the Pastoral Care Centre (PCC)
  • Recycling of old-style school uniforms to Vietnam Missions