Allanton Primary School

Pupils at Allanton Primary School started a project to improve recycling and prevent litter in their school grounds.

Pupils contacted North Lanarkshire Council to request bins and advice on how to increase recycling and reduce litter after noticing a problem in the outdoor space at the school.  They decided to purchase new paper and card bins, new food waste bins for the dinner hall and one for the nursery.  

They also decided to use their Wrigley Litter Less Campaign funding to purchase child size bins to make it easier for younger learners to use them. 

The Eco-Committee led a whole school assembly ahead of Waste Week to show the school the new bins and talk about what materials went in them.  They also made posters to display throughout the school.

For the nursery class, a teacher led a litter pick every day for a week and photographed all the available bins for the children to access indoors and out. 

She then created a set of homework tasks to establish the use of the different bins at home and in school.  Another teacher created a homework sheet to design visual clues and character names for the bins.

The Eco-Committee then took another look at the amount of litter that was collected in the school grounds that morning and found that the amount of litter was now minimal even after morning break which was fantastic.

The children then looked at the litter and realised that had all been placed in one bin and not separated at all which was a new problem.

So they then decided to discuss in their classes all the different types of bins and what they are used for. 

They identified the bins and their colours that the children have at home and made the link between those at home and those at school.