Choose to refuse single-use plastics in your school canteen.

How you can do it

The task of going plastic free in your school canteen might seem like a huge task, but don’t let it overwhelm you because hundreds of schools have shown that it can be done. Start out by conducting an inventory of all the single-use plastic items that are currently used in your canteen. You may be surprised by just how many there are!

These include plastic cutlery, plastic plates, bowls and cups, bin bags, biscuit packets, sauce sachets, teabags, and drink bottles. Keep this list for future reference – in a few weeks and months it will serve as a reminder of the changes you’ve made.

After your list is complete, you can start by choosing one item and thinking of an easy alternative. For example, you could swap a tomato sauce sachet with a large bottle of tomato sauce that students can use if they need. There’s plenty of information on our website about reusable alternatives, and staff and students often have great ideas.

When finding alternatives, it’s best to avoid other single-use products, such as cardboard, bamboo, or ‘compostable plastics’. Instead, swap items for reusable alternatives, such as ceramic mugs, stainless steel cutlery and glass cups.

Once everyone is enthusiastic about the first change, you can start the conversation about picking another item. Through this method, you can slowly make your way towards a single-use plastic free canteen!

Taking the next steps

A great way to continue your impact is to make sure you buy all fruit, vegetables, bread and rolls without packaging. Store them in reusable bread bags or containers to reduce waste.

Some canteens make their own food and drinks to sell to students, to save money and waste (particularly as many store-bought products come wrapped in plastic). This can include baked goods, icy poles, and more.

You can also encourage students to bring their own containers when they make their lunch orders, or provide plates, cutlery, etc. that students can return. If you choose to supply reusable items, it can be a great incentive to give students discounts, house points, or whatever works for your school to make sure they’re motivated to return everything.

This can mean that there are extra dishes to contend with, so you may want to apply for a grant for a dishwasher.

The Impact

• Reduce hundreds or even thousands of single-use plastics by making simple switches in the canteen.
• Model important behaviours for students and show them that reducing single-use plastics is achievable.

The post At the school canteen appeared first on Plastic Free July.

Bring Plastic Free July into your classroom.

How you can do it

There are many opportunities to go plastic free within the classroom. Crafts and classroom activities are a great place to start – for example, it’s easy to avoid plastic straws when building models by using bamboo sticks instead.

You can also get your students involved in the discussion. Conducting a bin audit, will help your class to understand the waste being created and to discover better alternatives/recycling practices.  

It can be incredibly effective to hold a brainstorming session with your students on how you can reduce waste. Some great ideas can be found in our Getting Started and Next steps cards.

To further engage your students, reach out to local groups in your area tackling the issue of plastic pollution and invite them to share their story. This could be environment groups, waste management companies, and local government bodies.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, model the behaviours you’d like to see in your students. By bringing your own reusable water bottle, coffee cup and containers, for example, you’ll show a practical example of how living without plastic waste can look.

Taking the next steps

Running DIY workshops can be a fun and informative way to take plastic free living in your classroom even further. Some fun examples of things you can teach your students to make include:

• Soap – this can be a great one for the science class (depending on the age of students), as you explain the chemical process of saponification. You can even let the students take their soap home with them.
• Beeswax wraps.
• Toothpaste.
• Deodorant.

One school told us about a maths class in which students counted the number of single-use wraps and packaging in their lunchboxes. They then showed students practical ways to reduce plastic waste and then re-counted a few months later. They saw a 26% reduction in single-use plastic wraps used across the school!

With a quick online search for plastic free classroom activities, you’ll see there are lots of resources out there.

The Impact

• Incorporating skills-development into your classroom activities can empower students to reduce plastics in their own lives.
• Many students take the message home to their families and try the Plastic Free July challenge together.
• Modelling behaviours (like bringing your own bottle) is a great way to quietly reinforce simple solutions for living plastic free.

The post For teachers appeared first on Plastic Free July.

Many people who have already mastered refusing the big 4 plastics at home (plastic bags, drink bottles, coffee cups and straws) ask ‘what’s next?’

It’s great that you’re excited to challenge yourself to do more – and you can! Sharing Plastic Free July at school is a great next step

How you can do it

There’s a lot of power in sharing your ideas and solutions with fellow students and parents in your school. Inspire others with how you’ve refused single-use plastic with wax sandwich wraps, homemade snacks over store-bought ones wrapped in plastic, reusable water bottles, cardboard pens, plastic free choices from the canteen, and more!

Encourage others by starting to share small ideas. Perhaps they can:

• Take a look at their lunchbox to find one thing they can swap out for a reusable alternative, or;
• Remember to BYO reusable water bottle, cup, cutlery, container, etc., or;
• Choose to refuse canteen items that are wrapped in plastic.

Beyond inspiring other students and parents, consider joining the sustainability committee at your school. If there is no sustainability committee, then why not set one up! See our Getting Started at School card to learn how.

Many people share the challenge using Plastic Free July’s downloadable resources, including posters you can put up around your school.

Finally, you could talk to your teachers about getting the whole class or school involved in the Plastic Free July challenge. You can refer them to our For Teachers card. Remember, if July doesn’t work for your school, you can do the challenge at any time of the year!

Taking the next steps

Lots of people choose to do a stationery audit at the end of the year. It’s a great opportunity to take stock of what you didn’t use and see whether it can be reused in the new year, rather than ordering more and wasting items. It can also be a great time to re-evaluate suppliers and see if there are alternatives to products made from or wrapped in plastic – like using highlighter pencils instead of pens, for example.

Another area where you can choose to refuse plastic waste is your school clothes. Are they made from plastic? And, if so, can they be swapped for natural fibres like cotton and wool?

Many people have clothes, stationery and toys that they no longer use. Rather than simply throwing them out, people often hold an event with friends and/or classmates and swap them, or organise to donate them to those in need as a group.

The Impact

• Learning what plastics you’re using on a daily basis, and slowly picking one at a time to substitute with an alternative can have a huge impact over time.
• Helping classmates, or the whole school, to reduce plastic waste will multiply your impact by hundreds or thousands.

The post Students & parents appeared first on Plastic Free July.

Share ideas to inspire people at school to participate in Plastic Free July

How you can do it

Many schools produce a large amount of plastic waste, but you can change that. By getting your school on board and educating them about the effects of plastic pollution, you can make a huge difference.

To start with, your school may also already have a sustainability committee or environmental club. If that’s the case, this can be a great opportunity to introduce the idea of Plastic Free July to like-minded individuals.

If there’s no committee yet, that’s OK. You can arrange a meeting with the principal and ask for their support in setting one up. Once you’ve got your group of like-minded people together, gaining momentum can be much easier.

Most schools choose to start small and get some easy wins as a way to build support. Have a look at our case studies  on reducing plastic waste at school to get inspired. Introduce the idea to the rest of the school by putting up posters or using our assets in newsletters to raise awareness and share solutions. 

Another fun and simple activity is holding a plastic free lunch day, where every student tries to bring their own lunch (not wrapped in plastic) or chooses a plastic free option from the canteen. Remember to let everyone know it’s happening and give them lots of notice.

Taking the next steps

Great school initiatives have come from brainstorming sessions. Often working with the committee will create ideas relevant to your school. These could include:

• Approaching the canteen to reduce plastic
• Helping a school event (e.g. disco, fete or carnival) to go plastic free
• Reviewing the stationery list and suggesting plastic free alternatives
• Reviewing the school procurement policy and adding in plastic free requirements

Setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals (for example, one school aimed for every student in Class 6 to use a reusable water bottle by the end of the year) can help you to track your progress as you go. You may be surprised by how quickly your changes can start to add up with a bit of time and effort.

Keeping good records of the committee’s meetings, goals, wins and challenges can be rewarding when you refer to these in the future.

The Impact

• Students are often keen to make a difference and willing to make small changes if they can see the bigger purpose/feel part of a larger movement. A simple switch can have a huge multiplier effect.
• Schools are also often a great base for broader change. Many students and teachers start to adopt plastic free practices in their everyday lives outside of school, too.

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Conduct a garbage bin audit to discover all the ‘waste’ that could be avoided, recycled or composted.

How you can do it

Whether at home, school or in your workplace, bin audits are a great way to understand waste you’re creating and discover any confusion about the alternatives. For example, if your bin audit shows that family members, classmates or co-workers are putting cardboard in the landfill bin, you can check to see if there is a service for it to be recycled.

Getting Set up

• If you’re at work or school gather together a team of colleagues/classmates/teachers who are keen to conduct a bin audit. It’s a much quicker and more fruitful process if conducted with a few people. Otherwise, at home, you can tackle the task by yourself or get the other members of your household involved.
• Pick a day not long after your bins have just been emptied (you don’t want to rummage through week-old waste). Make sure that you’ve given sufficient time for the bins to collect waste, but not too long that it’s started to go putrid.
• Find a location that’s sheltered, has good airflow and is easy to clean. Make sure that the waste won’t blow away in the wind, too.
• Source some tarpaulin from a friend, neighbour, or colleague.
• Optional: gather some buckets and scales to calculate the volume and weight of the waste you audit.
• Draw a table so you can keep a record of the waste you find. You may find you just need two columns: Category of waste and weight/volume. However, it’s always handy to prompt yourself to write the date, who helped with the audit, and what type of bin you were auditing (compost, general waste, recycling).
• Find some gloves (preferably washable) so that your hands stay clean.

On the day

• Gather your rubbish bin(s). Separate them by type (this may be: compost, recycling, general waste but it depends on the separation system in your home, school or workplace).
• Start with one type of rubbish and empty it all onto the tarpaulin.
• Separate the rubbish into piles. For example, you may separate the general waste bin into: batteries, paper, food, plastic bottles, plastic cutlery, soft plastic, cans, cardboard, glass.
• Estimate the volume or percentage of waste in each pile (or accurately weigh if you have scales) and write this in your table.
• If you have other bins, repeat this process with them, then clean up.

Taking the next steps

Once you’ve audited your bin, there’s a lot of useful information that can come from it. Start by taking note of the “low hanging fruit”; in other works, things that you can change quickly and still make a big impact.

Focus on those one or two items and figure out how you can improve. It might be eliminating a certain item or product that ends up in your waste a lot, or sourcing a local recycling centre for items that can’t go in the regular recycling bins.

Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-based) goals to reduce each item found in your bin audit. Reflect on these goals on a regular basis, and conduct a bin audit every 6 or 12 months to track your progress.

The Impact

• Reduce waste that needs collecting and reduce transport pollution.
• Engage with family members or  employees on their waste, helping them to share specific behaviours they can change.

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