DOMVS Enterprise Club Inspired Living - Issue 6 – Autumn Winter 2019

Damers
Eco Crew:
No Plastic,
Fantastic!
Eco Schools is at the heart of the life of the 450 pupils
at Damers First School. Every class has an Eco ambassador
who forms the Eco Crew. Sustainability is embedded
across our curriculum through planned activities. Each
class makes a termly pledge to help animals, people or
the environment giving every child the opportunity to
have a voice and speak passionately about environmental
issues they believe in. Katie White, Eco assessor
said, “The School has clearly demonstrated commitment
to Eco Schools. It was great to see this was led by the
pupils and they were really heading it up, with a strong
ability to speak for themselves, debate and question
difficult subjects.”
All children at the school garden which is really important
for health and environmental education. They work
with volunteers in the school garden growing seeds in
our plastic bottle greenhouse, planting seedlings out
and harvesting what they have grown to be cooked into
a dish related to a country or part of the Big Soup. The
local garden centre provided resources and time and in
September 2018 Damers came second in the Cultivation
Street School Garden Competition. All the school’s food
waste is put in our Ridan Food Waste Composter.
The children have been active in getting the local community
to recycle - printing cartridges, pens, biscuit
wrappers, crisp packets, soap dispensers, baby pouches,
pet food etc. This helps the environment and we raised
£2,000 so far with the money going towards a bird hide
and wildlife area with pond.
The school became an SAS Plastic Free School in May
2018. Children launched Refill Poundbury signing up 23
businesses and appeared on Newsround. They contacted
businesses supplying school fruit and milk asking if fruit
could come in card boxes and milk in reusable glass bottles.
They wrote to local head teachers asking them to
become plastic free schools. They put pressure on Brace
of Butchers about plastic used and this business implemented
their ideas, establishing a waste free shop. They
created posters giving the local community ideas on how
they could reduce plastic.
Most importantly, the children led a campaign to help
Dorchester achieve SAS Plastic Free Community Status.
They have given presentations to many community
organisations across the town and gained their support
including Dorchester Chamber of Business, Dorchester
Bid, the Town Council. The children have signed up 84
11
businesses and each of these businesses have removed
at least 3 single use plastics or found sustainable alternatives.
In July Dorchester became the 67th location
and 3rd location in Dorset to achieve this status. The
children have since set up a steering group with influential
members of the town to help them carry on their
great Plastic Free work making Dorchester as green as
possible. They have been invited onto Dorset Council’s
climate change panel as the Council realises the power
of the children’s message and the influence they have
had across the town and the county. The children won
four awards at the Young Enterprise Fiver Challenge
with their product Waxtastic No Plastic, an alternative to
cling film. They sold the product at local events raising
an amazing £4500 which has helped finance a school
nature area. Their resilience is amazing.
The school are ambassadors for Delphis Eco, an ecological
cleaning product we have used across the school
for the last 4 years. The packaging is made from 100%
recycled plastic bottles and they were the first company
to do this in 2017. The children sell delphis eco products
to parents, staff and businesses after school and
at weekends at Farmers Markets. The product has just
been launched in Robert Dyas Stores across the country.
It has the Royal Warrants for the Queen and Prince
Charles. Our school cleaner Debbie Grubb features on
one of the bottles as part of a quote she said.
Damers First School children with help from their teacher
Edd Moore came up with the idea of Boomerang Bag
Dorset to help reduce the amount of single use plastic
bags being used. The children have inspired the local