Narrator

Do you have an innovative way to improve sustainability in your school or preschool? We want to hear from you.

School Infrastructure in New South Wales is awarding funding of up to $15,000 for hands-on sustainability projects that benefit the environment by helping to save energy or water, reduce waste, or improve biodiversity.

Just like these grant recipients, [Lyndhurst Public School (waste-free lunches), Burwood Girl's High School (waste audit), Krambach Public School (sensory garden and bee homes), Whitton Murrami Public School (water quality investigation), Delungra Public School (koala rescue program)] your school could find innovative ways to reduce and recycle waste, create indigenous bush gardens or set up water recycling and storage systems. You might even create bee highways or work towards habitat regeneration for native animals. The possibilities are endless.

So if you've got a sustainable project idea you want to make a reality, what are you waiting for? Find out more and apply today.

[For more information visit schoolinfrastructure.nsw.gov.au]

[End of transcript]

[Inspiring music]

[Text on screen – Erskine Park High School 45 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD. Current enrolments 1011]

[Text on screen – Ground zero for the war on school waste.

Video – Sped up time lapse of people working with garbage bins, tarps and plastic bins set up around a covered outdoor learning area.]

[And HQ of the planet protectors – a cip of students walking in wearing protective gear including overalls, gloves and protective glasses. Their names are Sarah, Lara, Alex, Zoe, Sarah, Ali, Hamdan, Kirk, Abdullah, Joey and Bailey]

Zoe

The idea of planet protectors is to reduce the waste that comes from the school and to get rid of it in the right way.

[Students start placing the waste on the ground in the covered outdoor area.]

[Today is D-Day for the planet protectors who are undertaking the first ever waste audit at Erskine Park High School – Nat (Acting school principal) is talking to the planet protectors]

[Waste minimisation measures in place at Erskine Park High School include:

• Return and earn bottle and cans program
• Ersko cleanup card – reward card system
• Recycling bins in the playground area
• Green waste to compost for school gardens (image of ducks among trees)
• Food scraps for animals on school farm (image of hens).]

Nat Doidge (Acting School Principal)

Now we've already made lots of progress down this track, certainly separating the bottles and the glass. As a consequence of that, taking that return and earn, we've managed to replace plastic straws in our cafeteria, our cafe, with paper straws.

[Text on screen – Return and Earn introduced in early 2019. The school produces 39,000 empty containers annually worth $3,900 if all are returned.]

Separating out our green waste means that the compost that we're producing down on the farm now has green waste from the playground and that's being used in our gardens. And certainly, our waste from the kitchens is also being used to feed the chickens and the ducks and things down there. So, we've already made huge changes within our school.

[Clip of chickens strutting in the school’s coop. A gloved hand tosses fruit and bread scraps. Text on screen – The NSW Department of Education is responsible for over 250 schools that have agriculture plots.]

What's happening today is we are going to do some waste sorting; we're going to find out exactly what ours’ looks like.

[Image of labels being added to bins and close-up of some of the waste including paper cups and plastic.]

Teacher

To start with, we'll sort into those categories. So, plastics, glass, metals, paper, food, and all those ones, anything else, we're going to put into the tubs stick on that blue tarp over there.

[Sped up time-lapse clip of students sorting the waste.]

[Text on-screen – Students are sorting 2,400 litres of rubbish that has been collected in one and a half days at the school.]

[Rubbish is sorted into categories:

• plastics
• glass
• metals
• paper and cardboard
• food
• garden organics
• e-waste
• hazardous
• other.]

[Efficient sorting minimises waste that goes to landfill.]

Bailey

It's just crazy how much rubbish just comes out of this school and most of it goes to landfill. So, that's crazy.

Alexander

I joined Planet Protectors last year when the group started. I saw a lot of posters advertising things about how wildlife were losing their habitats due to waste, how much waste was going to the ocean. So, I joined so that I would make a difference.

Sarah Kim

We're learning that different things can be recycled, and we should be more aware.

Bailey

You don't realise how much of this there is because one person only needs three, four pieces of rubbish and it all comes together to make this.

[Erskine Park High School produces 23kg of food waste per day.]

Alexander

The biggest surprise to me was the amount of food waste because people that are less fortunate don't get enough food. And from other people who are more fortunate, and lucky, for them to waste it, I find it disgusting.

[Video of students sorting the last of the waste]

[Text on screen – With sorting complete, individual categories of rubbish are weighed and recorded. At audit completion after 2 hours of sorting 2,400 litres of waste this (one tub) is the only waste that cannot be recycled and will go to landfill. 180 litres – 13% of the total amount of rubbish – will go to landfill and the majority of this is used coffee cups.]

[Text on screen – Audit results also indicated that on average each student generates 20kg of waste per year, and 12kg of this is potentially recyclable, 4.5 kg of waste could be reuced/avoided.]

Alexander

I think many schools around New South Wales should get involved because, with all of us combined, we can make one big difference and change the world. And we can save the planet one wrapper at a time.

[And the next planet protectors project? Spread the learnings from the waste audit to all students at the school... as well as joining Erskine Park High School up to a coffee cup recycling program.]

[Music fades out.]

[End of transcript.]