The UK lags behind other European countries when it comes to burying waste in the ground. Here, 45 per cent of waste was recycled in 2014 and half sent to landfill. World-leader Sweden recycles 47 per cent of its waste and just 1 per cent goes into landfill – the rest generates energy.
You can research how effective your local authority is at recycling – figures are published each year. Share this information with the children (there are great opportunities for mathematical development here) and, as a project, write to the council or launch a poster campaign aimed at improving their record. Every setting should also have recycling bins as standard, for everything from paper to glass to ink cartridges.
Meal times are the perfect opportunity to put ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle’ into practice. If the children bring packed lunches, can they be ‘litter-less’, with as little packaging as possible?
A good challenge is for everything in the fridge to be used up at the end of the week. Children can use creative thinking skills to come up with recipes, with parents encouraged to try this at home.
Swapping clingfilm or plastic bags for reusable containers and implementing a purchasing policy to ‘buy local’ and ‘buy Fair-trade’ are options. These actions also provide valuable opportunities for discussions with children about the difference that it makes.
Carrying out an energy-saving audit with children will provide a picture of your current practice, and ideas for improvements. Reducing energy consumption can mean changing entrenched habits – a challenge when staff are used to turning the thermostat up; but having some standards within a policy will help to make expectations clear. (For example, setting the thermostat at 18-21°C, down from 21-22°C, can save around £75 each year.)
Materials also need not be wasted. Parents can be offered the chance to hold book and toy ‘swaps’ to exchange no-longer-needed children’s items. Another simple scheme is a ‘To be Fixed’ shelf where items in need of repair can be placed. These can then be mended by both children and staff so that children experience repair and learn not to automatically throw items away.
CASE STUDY: ABBOTSWOOD DAY NURSERY IN ROMSEY, HAMPSHIRE
Abbotswood Day Nursery has been using cloth nappies for the past 21 years. The nursery uses a laundry service, which collects the soiled nappies and delivers fresh ones, washed to hospital standards, on a weekly basis, which costs about 23p per nappy. Children are changed a minimum of five times each day.
Nursery manager Barbara Chaitoff explains that the decision was driven by an aim to reduce landfill waste – and given that they estimate they get through the equivalent of 725 disposable nappies per month (a staggering 8,700 per year), that’s no small saving.
She says, ‘As well as the obvious enormous reduction in landfill waste, there are also other benefits. We rarely have cases of nappy rash because the skin can breathe more easily and the children are changed more frequently.
‘Parents like the idea of a fully inclusive service and are only too happy to let us take care of it. Parents have chosen to use our nursery because of the cloth nappies and in 21 years only two families have chosen to continue with disposable nappies at the nursery, while some parents have even decided to start using cloth nappies at home as a result.’
The nursery washes the waterproof outer liners and the biodegradable nappy liners go in the setting’s clinical waste bins which are then collected by a company that recycles them into roofing tiles, cladding and cardboard. The setting also serves organic fruit and vegetables, the waste from which is collected by a company which uses it to make biogas.
FURTHER INFORMATION
Top tips for sustainability, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/187037/DFE-32056-2012.pdf
Statistics on local authority waste management, https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/481771/Stats_Notice_Nov_2015.pdf
Eco-Schools has a template for auditing current practice in waste, energy, litter, water, etc: www.eco-schools.org.uk/gettingstarted/programmematerials
Abbotswood Day Nursery(see case study) uses the following companies: https://www.organicbliss.co.uk
