Children from Rose Wood Academy’s School Council explain how they campaigned to reduce the use of plastic locally.
We decided to raise awareness about what plastic is doing to our environment and what we can do to help stop its effects. The reason plastic use is so disastrous is because it has huge negative impacts on wildlife in the local area and pollution. We had to do something about this.
“It has been normalised but needs to be put to a stop” – pupil
To get rid of plastic already polluting our area, we went on a litter pick. Then, to ensure that we dispose of plastic properly in school, we introduced soft plastic recycling stations around the buildings. We also encouraged our fellow pupils to recycle in school as well as at home.
We took part in making environmentally friendly food wraps made from beeswax. They can be reused and are washable. They use the heat in our hands to become malleable and wrap our food. These beeswax wraps are great for the environment as they are not made from plastic.
We also wrote to Middlesbrough Football Club because we noticed that they were using plastic bags. We really wanted them to swap to paper bags as they are more environmentally friendly. We used our persuasive writing techniques to try and convince them to make the switch.
Some other ways we campaigned included delivering an informative assembly to our school about the dangers of plastic use and filming a vlog for our parents to explain why beeswax wraps are better for the environment than plastic bags. We sold these wraps and donated the money to charity, too.
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