Did you know that tiger worms have five hearts? That they can eat one hundred times their own body weight every day? That milk bottle lids can be recycled into skateboards?

Plastic bottle lids - can they or can't they be recycled? The good news is, they CAN, but not in your recycling bag.

We are encouraging Broomfield children to collect these lids at home and then bring them to school. There will be a box in the school office where the lids can be placed. Serina the Hurunui Council Waste Educator will then collect these and pass them on to a local talent who converts this plastic into skateboards - how cool!Let's keep doing our bit for our planet and see you at the skate park!

This week we were reminded about our school's litter-free policy and the importance of reducing and recycling.  Serina Linton is the Waste Minimisation Officer at the Hurunui District Council. She delivered sessions reminding us about our waste streaming systems in each class, telling us how to become 'zero-waste' and to avoid litter at school. 

Here at our kura we reuse and recycle all paper, plastics 1,2 and 3 and food waste goes to the worms. All bars and snacks are unwrapped before going out to play and litter-free lunches are strongly encouraged. Our policy is to discourage plastic packaging from arriving at school in the first place, or unwrapping carefully and taking rubbish home. 'If you pack it in, you pack it out.'

Here's how you can help;

• We ask that wrappers or packets are removed before the food gets packed into the lunchbox and disposed of or recycled at home. Doing this step before the lunchbox comes to school, as opposed to being done at the end of the day would help us limit the stray rubbish around our kura significantly!
• Buy in bulk and save: cut back on packaging avoiding individually wrapped snacks such as yoghurt, dried fruit, chips and juices. Buy larger sizes and portion them out into reusable containers, saving both resources and money.