It looks like people are getting the wastebusting message in Surrey! Great news, don’t you think?
We visited some brilliant primary schools across the county to check on their progress. Pong and I could take a back seat whilst kids just like you were making a difference. Naturally we kept a safe distance downwind. Pong still thinks that if he leaves his dirty fur long enough it will clean itself. If there’s one thing I know, after many months of intergalactic travel in an overheated spaceship sat in close proximity to Pong, it is that fur does not self clean. Honestly, there are some things hidden deep in that fur, like bits of old dinner and fluff, that have been there so long they are beginning to compost. Filthy.
Luckily you lot on Earth seem to have better washing habits – well most of you, anyway. Kids better than teachers, I’ve found. You are a fragrant bunch.
Everyone at St Edmunds Catholic Primary School looked like they were having a brilliant time arguing. No fist fights or throwing things, just good honest debate. They’d watched the Wastebuster film and then got into groups to talk about whether or not paper recycling was a good thing. Both sides had strong points to make, but in the end the class decided that paper recycling was a really good way of saving natural resources and reducing landfill. After lunch, my mate James arrived with a big bag of worms and took a workshop to show how easy it was to set up a wiggly wormery. There was a competition to see which group could name the most things that could be composted – it got very competitive because everyone had such great ideas. In the end, everyone got to plant seeds and wave at the worms. I nearly gave away our hiding positi on when everyone pretended to be worms working food waste into compost – I laughed so hard watching them wiggling around. Probably a good idea to leave the actual composting to the worms.
Whilst the class was running about the playground, looking for leaves to put into the wormery, Pong was trying to strike up a conversation with the worms. They’re not a very sociable bunch – I suppose that they are just too busy working, munching their way through banana peels and apple cores to stop and talk. It didn’t stop Pong though – he jumped straight in. I had to retrieve him quickly, otherwise they would have started to break him down. I have to remind myself that Pong is actually a trained commando soldier on my planet – sadly on Earth he resembles the fluff by-product of washing dirty socks.
Over at Auriol Primary School everyone was getting really creative – they were dreaming up new stories and putting them into a storyboard, ready to start making their own stop-frame animations. It was brilliant because all this imagining and fun was actually helping them get their Silver Eco-Schools award!
Things were getting sorted at Pilgrims Way Primary – literally sorted and weighed and recycled. Not the children – just their waste. They were taking part in the Wastebuster Challenge, sifting through the rubbish left behind after a busy lunchtime and doing an audit of just how much waste there was. All this rubber-gloved work was earning them their Bronze Flag Award. Looking at what was being thrown away, separating out what could be composted and what could be recycled, gave them all the ideas they needed to create their own School Action Plan on waste. Now they’re planning to let everyone know how to reduce waste – and in a few weeks time they’ll be doing the audit again to measure how effective it was. Ideas, planning and action – that’s what I like to see. I’ll be sending a very favourable report back to Starfleet Command. All this work in Surrey is already having an impact on your intergalactic eco-rating – but there’s still more to do.
Come back and log on next week for news of the Wastebuster road trip to Liverpool!
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