Students keen to be 'rubbish-free'

Whangarei Intermediate's Eco Warriors Mikayla Walters, left, and Halle Findlay with teacher Tom Peyton at the school's vegetable garden. Photo / John Stone

Whangarei Intermediate School is hoping to be among the first "rubbish-free" schools in Northland, as it works towards eliminating non-recyclable waste by the end of next year.

The group of students charged with waging the war on waste are called "Eco Warriors". They have an overall focus on making the school more sustainable and are also responsible for the booming vegetable patches that have popped up near the school field.

Teacher-in-charge Tom Peyton said pupils had been working throughout the year to create the garden, building their own raised beds and composting system. The group's overall goal was for the school to be completely waste-free by the end of 2016.

"It's zero waste on everything. So getting to the stage where just about everything is biodegradable or recyclable. It's about changing habits " lunchboxes are quite a large part of the problem," Mr Peyton said, referring to the plastic wrap and packaging that helped fill the school's bins.

Pupil Jennifer Tobin said she had been able to take home some vegetables from the garden for her family. She had been involved with the Eco Warriors since the start of the year and had learnt how to compost, help the environment and "how to make a fabulous garden".

Whangarei Intermediate was an "Enviroschool", part of a nationwide programme aiming to foster a generation of people who instinctively think and act sustainably.

In future the school's food technology department would be involved in planning what would go in the garden. Soon, students would turn their attention to riparian planting in the flood zone where the school backed on to the the Waiarohia Stream, to help reduce sediment going into the Whangarei Harbour tributary.

There were about 1000 schools involved in the Enviroschools programme across New Zealand, which aimed to educate students about how to live off "natural systems" and encouraged young people to solve environmental issues in their own backyards.

Northland Regional Council sponsored 71 schools and three kindergartens.