Recycling School Friends

I'm getting a bit of a reputation at my sons' school.

I think it's the right reputation. However I can see why I could have given folk the wrong impression...having walked home from the school barbecue last month with a dozen empty wine bottles.

I can see the curtains twitching now...

"Look at her! How much has she had to drink? With two kids in tow as well. The poor husband".

A Saturday night at home maybe, but certainly not at the school barbecue. I've got standards to keep you know.

The bottles were the empties that I'd collected from an event which was run by The Friends committee, the fundraising team for our excellent school. Not content with slimming just my own bin, I thought I'd do my bit for the school so I brought the bottles home and by the following lunchtime, they were cosied up in the bottle bank. I also rescued about 50 plastic cups from a life of landfill and are still reusing those to this very day.

But get this...As a consequence of my drastic action, I have now been bestowed with a new title on the Fundraising Committee...

Recycling Coordinator!

Hooray! Yes Recycling Coordinator and I think every PTA should have one!

Even though the school is great at recycling, when it comes to the business of fundraising events and all of the other event management that goes with it, there's never been much time to consider the clear-up operation.

Aha...until now!

However, it doesn't stop there. I've already mentioned my other goal...reassessing prizes, gifts and snacks to reduce wasteful packaging, i.e. stopping rubbish at source.

I didn't push, but planted a seed.

Initial reactions such as "that'll be tricky", suddenly developed into "but if we bought little boxes of Smarties instead of packets of sweets...".

So Project Infiltration has begun.

And for our Summer Fayre on 19th July, the most important thing is to have our recycling bins in place, ready to receive cans and bottles or rubbish.

I thought it would be great to get the school involved so I asked the Head if he could get the kids to decorate them.

To which he replied, "Yes, we could, and you could come in and inspire them".

"Deal" I said, quite happy to get my hands dirty with paint.

At which point he opened his diary, pencilled in Tuesday and said "Assembly it is then"!

What!

How the heck did that happen? I know he's a smooth operator, but eh, I'm also know as Mrs Non-Stick who could have been the inventor of Teflon if I'd been born just 10 years earlier.

A school assembly....

with 149 children...

with me at the front.

No paint, just chat...

with teachers watching.

Now my reputation is really at stake!

So recycling friends, wherever you are. Wish me luck, give me strength and fortitude...

...because next Tuesday, I will most definitely need it.
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