La Houguette pupils tally up their plastic use
CHILDREN from La Houguette School have been making their own contribution towards climate action by taking part in the Unicef Outright campaign and measuring how much plastic waste they create.
The annual event this year had the theme of ‘Let’s take climate action’ and this tied in with the school’s winning of the Rights Respecting Gold Award.
The youngsters have heard about innovative ways in which children’s rights are being protected from the impact of climate change ‘through adaptation and campaigning for climate action’, said the Rights Respecting website.
‘This campaign is filled with hope and solutions.’
Head teacher Claire Judd said that the children had learned about this through assemblies and lessons promoting use of the Sustainable Development Goals in learning, ‘so that children can contribute to a better future for all’.
There are 17 statements in the Global Goals which were made by 193 world leaders towards ending extreme poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030 and the climate action section was goal 13.
That saw a total of 107,119 schools, households, community groups and businesses counting their plastic waste for a week during March.
La Houguette’s data covered 37 families who between them used 2,545 bits of plastic – that would equate to 132,340 pieces a year.
The vast majority of this, 84%, was from food and drink. Just less than half was plastic like bottles and the rest was soft plastic such as bags and wrappers which are not recycled in the island.
Mrs Judd said that next term the school would be holding an ‘Unwrapped Event’ where it will be inviting deputies, supermarket representatives and people from the community to watch a presentation led by the Rights Respecting group on its findings and hearing ideas on how plastic usage might be reduced.
