Environmental Review Litter and Waste - Green Schools Ireland

Environmental ReviewLitter and Waste• Your review is one of the first steps in yourGreen-Schools programme• You should undertake your review before youdraw up your action plan• And before you implement any litter/wastereduction measures

Items we have no further use for, they maybe useful to someone else so we may beable to pass them on for reuse (clothing tocharity shops) or recycling (paper, plastic,cans).

“waste in the wrong place”- ifit’s in the bin its waste, if it’s onthe ground its litter

Litter Review – how to do it!• Materials required• Graph paper• Pencil• Markers• Ruler• Gloves or litter picker• Bags/bin

Procedure•Divide school and school grounds into different areas for differentgroups of students to carry out a review on that area e.g. classrooms,hall, yard, garden•Assign a group of students to each area•Students draw a map of the area•Students collect litter and mark on the map where litter was found,different types of litter can be marked on the map with different colourpens

•Get students to quantify how much litter was found in each areaby calculating weight or number of different types of litter•Students draw bar, pie charts or pictogram to represent theirfindings

Waste Review• Contact your waste service provider – they canoften provide weights get the weight records foras many months as possible (best been for a year)and get students to calculate the average monthlyor weekly weight of waste produced and theweight of weight produced per person in theschool daily/weekly or monthly.(it may also bepossible to get different weights for recyclables’and landfill waste)

If your bin weights are not recorded byyour waste collection company weighyour waste daily or weekly for a periodand calculate the average, a bathroomscales can be used.

Do a bin survey i.e. empty the binonto a plastic sheet and get students(wearing Gloves) to separate wasteinto different items e.g. cans, papers,plastic, graph your results

The information gained from your litterand waste review will show you whereyour main problems are with litter andwaste and will be used in drawing up youraction plan.

The reviews will also help youdecide on your targets i.e. thereductions in the amount of litterand waste you are going to aim for.

You will repeat your litter and waste survey anumber of times throughout your Greenschoolsprogramme (Monitoring andEvaluation) to check you are reaching yourtargets and to make amendments in yourprogramme where necessary,