Molesworth Primary School

Molesworth Environment Centre

http://www.tased.edu.au/schools/moleswop/

Molesworth Primary School is a small semi-rural school of approximately 135 students from Kinder - Grade 6, set in the picturesque Derwent Valley in Tasmania. A special feature of the school is its Environmental Education Centre that hosts approximately 3,000 visiting school children annually.

The school has a waste management program that consists of several "hands on" educational programs, including

• green waste recycling,
• classroom paper reuse and recycling, and
• community recycling facility

All food scraps from the school and the Environment Centre are recycled in a worm farm. Students from the Grade 2/3 class manage the wormery. This is done each school day after lunch. As part of this program students have developed a PowerPoint presentation entitled "Feeding Time at the Wormery" that shows the steps involved with caring for the wormery. A visual display has also been developed so that visitors to the Environment Centre can also learn what to do. The worm castings are used on garden beds or as potting mixes. The school has a propagation shed in which students raise vegetable and flower seedlings. Native plants propagated from local seed are used for landscaping in the school and for bush regeneration projects in the local environs.

A two-bin compost system, which was designed and built by Grade 4/5 students with the help of a parent, is used to compost herbaceous garden waste. Our school also has a garden shredder which the grounds-person uses to shred garden prunings. This material is either placed in the compost or spread as mulch on the many garden beds in the school.

A paper reuse and recycling system has recently been re-established in the school. This system has been designed and managed by a student taskforce, the Paperwise group. Students from the 4/5/6 classes participate in this program. The paper reduction system relies on source separation of paper suitable for reuse from that which can be recycled. The paper suitable for recycling is used by the students to make paper which is then made into books, cards and other paper products. It is intended to sell these items as a student enterprise project. Surplus paper is taken to Collex Recyclers for recycling.

Students from 4/5/6 are involved with the maintenance of the local community recycling facility which is located adjacent to the school. The recycling centre accepts glass, plastics (1.2.3), and aluminium cans for collection for recycling. Once a week the students maintain the Centre by sorting the recyclables and keeping the centre tidy. This maintenance is done in conjunction with personnel from the Derwent Valley Council.

These "hands on" programs are also linked to the learning curriculum through classroom educational programs. For example, every second year students involved with the Recycling Centre have visited Collex Recyclers, The Tip Resource Shop at Glenorchy municipal landfill and Not Junk. This excursion aims to find out what happens to the recyclables once they are collected from the Recycling Centre and to also learn more about waste as a resource. Also each year our school participates in Clean Up Australia Day by removing roadside litter from the local area.

The Molesworth Environment Centre is an integral part of the school and offers environmental education programs to schools that visit, in the main, from metropolitan Hobart. Food scrap composting and paper reduction programs are integrated with the school programs. The Environment Centre houses many displays including a waste minimisation display that focuses on the waste hierarchy. Educational programs offered by the Centre include bush trails, team building activities, pond studies and programs tailored to individual class needs. The Centre is a valuable resource for teachers with many displays and with books and other resources available for loan.

For further information contact
The Principal, Mrs. Jill Armstrong, Molesworth Primary School
Teacher-in-Charge Molesworth Environment Centre: Chloe Luttrell
540 Molesworth Road, Molesworth 7140

Waste Reduction Objectives:

• To extend the existing waste management program that operates at Molesworth Primary School and the Molesworth Environment Centre.
• To re-establish classroom wastepaper reuse and recycling system
• To create paper products from wastepaper by reuse of paper and by recycling wastepaper into handmade paper and card.

Actions:

• Student taskforce designed and set up wastepaper minimisation system.
  This involved:

  Audit of existing arrangements
  Design of the wastepaper system
  Introduction of the wastepaper system
  Operation and maintenance of the wastepaper system
  Evaluation and adjust when required
  Final audit

• Papermaking and creation of paper products from wastepaper.
• Surplus wastepaper taken to Collex Recyclers for recycling.

Outcomes:

• Wastepaper reuse and recycling system established
• Amount of wastepaper reduced.
• Unique handmade paper products created
• Surplus wastepaper responsibly disposed for recycling