On Friday 22nd November 2019 Balcarras held another 'No Plastic Day'.  The aim of this day was to reduce the amount of single use plastic that we produce as a school.  This was an initiative that was driven forward by the 'Green Group' and the 'Eco group'.

Pupils were keen to do something about this issue.  The idea was to look at how we impact the problem and what could be done abut it.  Here are some facts about plastics;

•There are more 5 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean

•By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the seas

•50 percent of the plastic we use, we use just once and throw away

•The production of plastic uses around eight percent of the world's oil production

•One million sea birds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed annually from plastic in our oceans

As a school we have held 'No Plastic Days' in the past, as a result of this we have already done the following;

•We no longer sell food in styrofoam containers, and pasta pots

•Instead we use vegware pots made from organic materials, biodegradable.

•Takeaway containers are biodegradable

•More staff are using their own pots

•Sandwich boxes are biodegradable

On the day these are some of the actions that we took; 

•We aimed to not use ‘single use plastic’ on ‘No plastic Day’

•We encouraged people to bring in their own pots for takeaway food

•We only gave out Wooden forks instead of plastic forks

•We encouraged people to bring in their own water bottles, and we switched off the vending machines, we also sold squash in reusable cups rather than throw-away bottles.

Baguettes were served in compostable wrappers rather than plastic wrappers.

•We have a system where you save money if you use school plates or bring in your own tub or container

•Pasta pot £1.20 if you bring your own bowl, or use a bowl

•£1.40 takeaway tub

•Up to £1.50 from 1st Dec

•Dinner on a plate £1.90

•Takeaway container £2.10

•Going up to £2.30 from 1st Dec

•If you bring in your own tub or container you could save 40p a day, which is £60 a year.

This was a great day and showed that people can modify their behaviours to not use single Use plastics.  There are still other challenges that we can address at school to reduce our waste.  If you would like to get involved then contact Mr Pearce.