Day 5: School recycling in Moreton Hall

Huge thanks to Abbots Green, Sebert Wood and Moreton Hall Prep School for taking part in my Recycle Week pledge. You're the real stars of the week along with your teachers who have also worked hard.

Phew what a day!

I've spent much of today dropping into our local schools to see how they've been getting on during Recycle Week. And I can honestly say I am amazed at the results. Not least because school life is always busy and this week has probably been more hectic than most. Yet they've all come up with the goods.


Early this afternoon, I visited Sebert Wood school to collect the cartons from them. They've had such a busy week with an Ofsted inspection, school trips and a teddy bear's picnic, but the children still managed to collect lots of cartons. The school staff also told me they've had a recycling assembly this week, featuring recycling songs and all the children were invited to make pledges, which they hung on their pledge tree.

Later I met up with the one of our friends from Moreton Hall Prep School, to add the last of their collection into the bin.

They too have had a busy week at the school and have had a team of volunteers making a regular run to the temporary recycling bin throughout the week.

Judging by how full it is, I think they've been hectic with their contributions too.

My final visit today was back to our own school Abbots Green, to catch up with how their week has gone.

And as I expected, they too have been busy working on their pledges. Here are a few members of the Recycling Club, helping to recycle some of the cartons I've been given.

Here's how the bin was looking this morning.

Abbots Green has also been busy with another recycling activity this week, which grabbed the interest of our local newspaper the Bury Free Press. Here's the journalist at the top of the ladder taking a photo of the results.

He was pointing his camera at a collage made from clothes donated to the school's textiles collection. I wasn't tall enough to capture the scene properly on my camera but here are a few highights of the detail in the picture.

Some children playing ball on the beach.

A sunbather resting under a parasol.




And on the horizon, a sailing boat gently drifting across the seascape.

Organised by one of our assistant headteachers and the art co-ordinator, the project was put together to give the children an understanding of reuse and an opportunity to engage their creativity. The effects were stunning and involved the whole school with each class taking their turn to create the seaside landscape. When I collected my children from school this evening they were keen to tell me how they made the sand and the sky.

I'm now looking forward to next week, when not only will we find out how much we have raised for the school, but we will also be able to see the full effect of the picture when it is published in the Bury Free Press.

So at the end of what has been a hectic school week, with me almost forgetting to take my own cartons into school, I'd like to thank all the schools in Moreton Hall for joining in the fun and for St Edmundsbury Borough Council for providing the bins.

There are only two more days to go of my Recycle Week pledge which is to help those in my community waste less this week.

It promises to be a quiet weekend, but if something happens, I'll be back to break the news.
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For other schools that are interested in organising a textiles collection, the contractor arranged by our local council to collect our clothes is BCR. More information about BCR's work can be found at their website at www.bcrglobal.co.uk

More information about other ideas and opportunities for recycling in schools can be found at the Recycle Now website.

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