Chrysalis Steiner School

Green Leaders Waste Audit

Class 6 at Chrysalis have been working with Green Leaders on a waste audit of their school campus.

The Green Leaders Education Program is run by Sustainable Schools NSW and provides support for students, teachers and schools to develop student-led waste reduction projects.

Class 6 looked at what waste the School generates, thought about how they can repurpose items and take responsibility for litter around the classrooms and high school area.

The first picture shows the rubbish that was collected around the gully, and what would have been washed out to the river and then the ocean in significant rain.

Rubbish collected at School and taken to the tip each week falls into two categories; landfill and mixed recycling. Food waste is composted on site.

Firstly, there was almost no compostable/ food waste in the landfill waste which is excellent, as this can account for up to 40% landfill waste generated in the general population- resulting in methane gas from landfill, and wasted nutrients that could be cycled into valuable compost, so well done Chrysalis!

Secondly the school had a low volume of single use plastics in landfill waste, which is fantastic, reflecting the healthy, whole foods and no plastic waste lunches that are common at School. A space for improvement is the litter around the classrooms and grounds in the high school area, that does not break down and could find its way into the ocean. Some of it could have been laying around for a while!

To be really super- unavoidable soft plastic waste that is clean could be separated and taken to a RedCycle collection point at Woolworths or Coles.

Total landfill waste that the school generated in one week was 18.06kg, a significant amount of that we noticed was recyclable- such as paper, so better sorting to the recycling bin would be good. Recyclable waste from one week amounted to 35.26kg. And we noticed very little contamination though items such as soft plastic that was in the recycling.

An interesting off-shoot was some interesting items the girls found that they were able to salvage- such as used canvases that can be painted over and used again! A good reminder to think, even if we may not need something anymore, who else could use it?!

Lastly, the class came up with 5 points to improve and reduce waste and litter at School: