This is a 9-teacher school with over 120 students located in Dublin City. The committee consists of two teachers, six students, one SNA and a caretaker.
To select the student committee members, elections were held for 6th class, names of interested students were picked from a hat for 5th class. The rest of the classes picked two girls each, to act as liaison with the committee – they have responsibility for collecting and rinsing bottles and cartons and delivering them to boxes in a designated classroom. The committee meets weekly at lunchtime or at 1.45 or 2.00 after the infant classes have gone home.
In school:
The reuse of plastic bottles is encouraged – those that are disposed of are collected and taken to the Bring Centre in Coolock.
Almost every pupil has a lunch box.
The organic fraction of waste is composted.
The schools identified that an awful lot of paper was being collected for recycling. They wanted to reduce the amount of paper being consumed drastically! They did this by:
(a) Monitoring number of photocopies used per week and letting everyone know how much paper was being wasted.
(b) Encouraging photocopying on both sides of each page.
(c) Keeping pages copied on just one side for drawing, rough work, and taking notes.
(d) Filling all the spaces in their copies.
Green-Schools has shown St. Eithne’s and St. Monica’s Schools "a great new way for younger and older children and staff to work together – when everyone is enthusiastic and everyone’s ideas are important you get really great work".