Pledge to Recycle

What can we do about the problem of waste at your school?

Take the ‘Pledge to Recycle’!

The 'Pledge To Recycle' is a scheme run by Suffolk County Council's School Waste Education Officer to encourage schools to start recycling or to increase school recycling rates. There are staged awards to work towards by achieving increasing levels of recycling and we have designed the scheme so that it can be completed within one academic year.

Initially, we can come in to talk to you about the scheme and discuss any queries you may have before signing up to take the Pledge.

Once you have signed up, you will need to do a whole school waste audit (and it’s great to get a few children to act as environmental champions to lead on the scheme) and this will indicate how much residual waste is generated. We can give advice on how to complete an audit and also loan resources (spring balances) if required.

Once we know how much waste you are currently creating, we can work on implementing your recycling scheme. We can help you to do this by:

• liasing with your local Borough/District Council if you do not already have recycling collections/facilities in your area
• providing free classroom bins up to the value of £20 to kickstart the scheme (additional bins can be purchased from us at any time)
• launching the pledge officially by giving a whole school assembly
• delivering waste education activities in the classroom (or outside!) to help support the work of implementing the recycling scheme (Fees apply. Please ask us for more details)

Each term, a recycling target will be set. At the end of each term, another waste audit will need to be carried out. If you have met or exceeded the target, the school will receive a stage award;

Bronze - 35% recycling Silver - 50% recycling Gold - 70% recycling

When the school has reached the gold award status, you will receive a commemorative plaque. You will then only need to carry out one waste audit per academic year to ensure that the school can keep the plaque and are still recycling the required amount. The plaque will then be updated every year with an extra attachment (the year).

Also see the Pledge To Recycle download details.

If your school would like to sign up to the pledge, or you would like more information contact: Melanie Brown Tel:01473 264280 Email: school.waste@suffolk.gov.uk