School reaps huge rewards from plastic
Teachers Tedjie Mthai and Gertrude Mashego of Sakhile High School show the heaps of plastic their learners collected from the area around the school and in their communities.
WHITE RIVER – The pupils of Sakhile High School know how to recycle their plastic – do you? It forms part of the
10 schools under the care of the AutoTec Foundation who walked away with a cash prizes, a microwave and fridge as winners in this year's Clean-Up Competition hosted by Plastics SA.
Sakhile was awarded third place in the Clean-Up category, winning R1 000 and a recycling bin. It also won first place in the high-schools recycle category and received R5 000 as well as a fridge. As part of the first prize, one pupil and teacher will join the rest of the winners for a weekend of relaxation in Durban in November. “The AutoTec Foundation is very proud to be associated with a school such as Sakhile and encourages the learners to continue recycling in order to preserve the environment for future generations,” says its founder and head, Jeannine Ferreira.
The 2013 Clean-up and Recycle Competition sponsored by Plastic SA was open to schools, communities and organisations. Entrants were invited to send in action plans for their clean-up event or draw up a recycling action plan for their school, community or office. Many entries were submitted and the judges had a tough time deciding who the winners were. “The aim of this inter-schools contest is to create awareness of plastics among children and educate them about the positive attributes of plastics and the responsible use and disposal thereof. As future custodians of the earth, they have the chance to make a difference in their homes, schools and environment,” says Douw Steyn, sustainability director of Plastics SA.
Schools and organisations can submit entries in any of the four categories:
• Category 1: Our Clean-Up encourages schools or communities to draw up a marketing and action plan to clean up a local river, dam or beach.
• Category 2: We Recycle promotes schools or communities to engage with their local municipality and a local recycling entrepreneur during a recycling initiative. Participants have to identify and list the different types of plastics that they collected, and list which new products are being manufactured from the recycled material.
• Category 3: We Cleaned-Up and Recycled – where a school organised an exciting clean-up and recycling event within their local community, or at a local river, dam or beach.
• Category 4: Our carbon handprint (@home, @office, @organisation) encourages communities to initiate or support clean-up and recycling activities.
