‘The Echo’

Posted: 3rd December 2020

St Augustine’s Priory and sustainability.

Ms Hagerty and the Junior and Senior Eco Committees are delighted to launch the first ever article for The Echo, a new weekly bulletin which aims to engage our wider community in issues surrounding sustainability and reducing our carbon footprints. Our first bulletin discusses how to have a Sustainable Christmas, following an assembly given by the Junior Eco Committee last week.

Rosemary in Upper II has written the following, very relevant, article.

‘Why a sustainable Christmas is important! 

It is important to have an eco-friendly sustainable Christmas because, as Eco Monitors, we need to make sure that the school is eco-friendly! In doing that for Christmas, we need to reuse and recycle, making decorations from materials we have at home, such as plastic bottles or cartons. Our recent assembly focused on three main things:

  • Regifting instead of buying new
  • Buying sustainably sourced Christmas trees or plastic reusable ones
  • Making decorations out of recycled materials

Together we can make the school a more eco-friendly place to be!’

In their collaborative assembly, Christina, Rose and Sara first gave a guide to sustainable Christmas items:

  • A quick guide to sustainable items.

Sustainable means reusable. You can use things over and over again… Sustainable items are mostly very good for the environment. If you use sustainable items, that is better for the environment and lasts for a long time. Most sustainable things are the harder kind of plastic or paper. Sustainable items are the best kind of items for an environmentally friendly Christmas as they last a long time and cannot harm any habitats or the ocean.

  • How we can use sustainable items for decoration.

We can combine a number of sustainable plastic items that can make a decoration, or always use reusable items. You can use LED lights which are highly eco-friendly.

Make sure you are aware of your Christmas tree carbon footprint. A potted living tree is most recommended as it lasts for a very long period of time and it is highly reusable plant which is probably a very good option for an Eco-Friendly Christmas tree.  Ideas for those creatively minded included making a newspaper Christmas Tree, cardboard paper baubles and mood lighting cans.

Tara then explained why re-gifting is more sustainable

‘We all know that every year during Christmas period we all keep buying presents for our family and friends although it’s a nice, friendly habit but we have to think about the impact of producing all these presents on environment.

We all need to think carefully about how we can each play our role in taking care of the planet.

We should now start re-gifting presents.

By reducing the amount of presents that we buy we can help to save more resources such as plastic, trees, metals, petrol and wool.’

This was followed by Stella and Maia explaining about sustainable and reusable Christmas Trees.  ‘Choose sustainable!  If you do get a real tree, make sure that the supplier plants a new tree for each tree they sell.  We think that a reusable Christmas tree is a better option!  It’s cheaper, and they don’t shed spiky leaves!  You don’t have to water them and they come available in a variety of colours.’

 

 

Categories: Junior Priory Post Whole School
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