In the last academic year, the Principal of St Edmund’s Catholic Academy was faced with a challenge. Staff, pupil, and parent groups have all met with Maggie Hazeldine to ask what St Edmund’s could do to become a more environmentally friendly community. 

Inspired by the work of Greta Thunberg,  the academy’s recycling and eco committees have been busy addressing this question. “Listening to parents and pupils I was horrified to realise that at lunch times we were throwing away 88,000 single use plastic food containers a year!” said the Principal.

Mrs Hall , the school’s  catering manager was quick to make a change by redesigning the lunches to return to reusable resources and the reduction in waste has been dramatic! Not only is the academy improving the environment but also encouraging a return to healthier eating, with delicious meals and less “takeaway” food. 

Mrs Hazeldine said, “ I am so proud of our students and their sense of social responsibility is to be commended. We have  further ideas to establish a swap shop and have also been nominated to receive 30 trees in collaboration with CGI (the multinational IT and Business Consultancy).  Once again this opportunity was driven by one of our parents who works for the company and we are delighted to support their mission to offset their carbon footprint.”

“Our Eco committee are now busy discussing  ways in which we can achieve our other goals of global citizenship as we work towards the final steps towards achieving the  Eco Schools Green Flag award.”