A Rotherham conservation project has been shortlisted for one of Keep Britain Tidy’s annual awards.
Thorpe Hesley Primary School’s conservation project, Saving the Planet One School at a Time, involved a number of partners in the community working together to encourage children to reduce the school’s carbon footprint and increase recycling.
The project involved the school working with Rotherham Council, South Yorkshire Police, and the National Wildlife Trust to educate children about the impact of littering and the effects this has on the environment.
The project began with teachers covering their school field in rubbish and fly tipping, then cordoning off the area with tape ready for Police to attend the scene.
For the following two weeks, the children were involved in the clean-up process and learnt about the importance of reusing, repurposing, and recycling rubbish. Some of the rubbish collected from the field was used to create colourful pieces of art to be displayed around the school.
Thorpe Hesley Primary School’s Office Manager Katie Dawson said: “This project has been a fun and fantastic way of creating a greater awareness within the school about recycling. Since the project began, we have appointed recycling ambassadors to ensure the vital work around reusing, repurposing, and recycling continues. We are extremely proud of the work we have achieved as a school and a community to make a positive difference to our environment.”
There are ten award categories in the Keep Britain Tidy’s annual awards, each with three shortlisted contenders, and Rotherham has beaten off stiff competition from across the country to become a finalist in the Young Heroes category.
The awards recognise and celebrate local authorities and partners that are committed to making significant improvements to the environment on people’s doorsteps, from community engagement work to waste enforcement work.
Keep Britain Tidy’s Chief Executive, Allison Ogden-Newton, said: “I would like to congratulate Rotherham on being shortlisted for one of our annual awards.
“We know that people want to live in places that are clean and tidy and local authorities have a massive role to play in this and should rightly be recognised for their efforts.
“We are thrilled that so many authorities entered our awards and, again, the standard was incredibly high. We look forward to seeing representatives from Rotherham at our awards ceremony in Birmingham in February.”
Rotherham Council’s Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment Cllr Beck said: “Saving the Planet One School at a Time has been an incredible project for the partners to be involved in as it has created a conversation within Thorpe Hesley Primary School and the wider community about the significance of recycling. We are all very proud to be shortlisted for the Keep Britain Tidy awards for this project which has had such a positive impact on the community.”
As part of conservation project Saving the Planet One School at a Time, the children had to identify key areas within the community that the Council and enforcement teams could look at in order to reduce litter issues. The wider impact of this was that it led to a community litter pick over an entire weekend, resulting in over 50 adult volunteers litter picking in the village with some of the school children.
The Keep Britain Tidy Awards will be presented at the charity’s annual Network Conference at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole hotel on Thursday 10 February 2022.