Meadowview P.S. EcoSchools Team Wins Recycling Award

(Addison) - Students at Meadowview Public School have earned a little green to help make their school grounds a little greener.

Members of Meadowview’s EcoSchools Team have been recognized by TerraCycle Canada as a winner of the company’s 2012 Winter Trash to Cash contest. The school’s recycling program collected the most juice packets, Ziploc bags, and chocolate bar and cracker wrappers, of any school participating in the contest – at an amazing 18,494 units. The grand total won the school another 5,000 TerraCycle points, which means the company will give the school $250 for its accomplishment.

The money will help with the school’s ongoing fundraising efforts to create an outdoor classroom. The school, which already has an extensive tree planting program for its schoolyard and a butterfly garden, hopes to add half-log benches in an area of the yard to create the classroom.

While Club Advisor Paula Mooney is excited about the money, she says the accomplishment represents a bigger prize – increased environmental awareness among her students and their families.

“We only have one earth and it’s precious,” said Mooney, a teacher at Meadowview. “For me it’s not the money. It’s about keeping that garbage out of the landfill site and changing attitudes (about trash disposal).

“If they think about it before throwing a wrapper out and educate their families about it, the hope is that when these students have kids, recycling will become a habit – they won’t even have to think about it.”

The wrappers and sandwich bags are sent to TerraCycle, a Toronto-based company that uses them to make tote bags and other goods for resale. Under their school-based program, a school is given two cents for every used packet collected. The program keeps garbage out of the landfill site, raises money for schools, and provides raw materials for TerraCycle’s products.

The TerraCycle award is only one of many accomplishments at Meadowview Public School. The EcoSchools Team manages a vermiculture program, an ongoing tree-planting program, and runs an “energy hog” initiative that awards an “energy hog trophy” to the classroom that does things such as leaves lights on and computers running unused. The club has placed small signs in the hallways to remind staff and students to shut off lights and conserve electricity.

Due to the club’s efforts, Meadowview has also been designated as a gold status EcoSchool.

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For more information, please call:

Paula Mooney
Teacher
MeadowviewPublic School
613-924-2880