The litter and waste flag is part of a national education programme called Green Schools run by An Taisce. Green schools aim is to promote positive environmental change in schools through their program. Roughly 300 Dublin schools are currently registered, and many have one or multiple flags outside their school.
The first flag our school is aiming to obtain is the litter and waste flag. In order to achieve this our school community needs to do the following
- Increase awareness levels in school and wider community
- Make practical improvements
Some steps we plan to make to achieve these goals are, completing awareness questionnaires, implementing more recycling bins, litter black spot mapping and putting up a notice board in the hallway.
There are also 7 steps to implement the programme. These are as follows:
- Make a green schools committee (Done)
- Do an environmental review
- Make an action plan
- Monitoring and evaluating progress throughout the year
- Curriculum work through ethics and awareness days
- Informing and involving all members of the school community
- Making a green schools code or saying
Of course, this sounds great, but why are we doing this as a school and why is greens schools a program in the first place? Well as individuals in our school community we have the power to make positive changes to benefit our environment. By doing so we can protect our local area for future generations and ourselves. This is vital as there is no planet B!
The green schools are asking everyone to be involved and aware for their environmental impact. We can’t make an impact with just a few people. Finally, if anyone is interested in joining the green schools, please go to room 19/ music room at lunch on a Tuesday or talk to Niamh.