Our Kaitiakitanga Values Leaders are excited to be organising and promoting environmentally focussed events and systems at Merrin School. Chloe, Kymani, Mia, Sophie and Shire hosted our first Friday Eco Swap of the year last week and were kept busy with lots of swaps and counting bread tags!

Friday Eco Swap 8.30am

Our weekly Friday Eco Swap resumed last Friday. Every Friday morning at 8.30am outside the hall, the Kaitiakitanga Team will be holding our weekly Eco Swap. Students, whānau and teachers are encouraged to come along and swap an unwanted item for another item. For example, you could swap a book for a toy or plant. No electronics please. We will also be collecting plastic bread tags to help raise money for wheelchairs in other countries. Our worm farm "Worm Juice" liquid fertiliser, maintained by Room 8, will also be on sale: $2.00 for 2 litres. We look forward to seeing you there.

Kaitiaki Kiwis and Litter Free Lunches

Thank you to all of our Kaitiaki Kiwis across the whole of Merrin School, who give up part of their lunch time once a week to pick up rubbish in the playground. We would really like this role to become redundant, so what better way to do this than to provide litter free lunches for our ākonga. Packing a litter free lunch means no waste to throw out when you’ve finished eating. Anything that can’t be eaten should be taken home to be washed and reused. Using reusable food containers, cotton wraps, buying in bulk and buying fresh can help to eliminate prepackaged lunches. Compostable scraps are great for home composts and worm farms. Best of luck!

Less rubbish lying around our school, means less rubbish making its way into our waterways. You may have noticed the small blue fish next to our drains, helping to raise awareness about our waterways. These are designed to be a visual reminder to people that the water that flows through the grates, ends up in local streams and rivers and impacts on the fish habitat. Source: newsline.ccc.govt.nz 

Kaitiaki Turtle Recycling Awards

Congratulations to Room 1 in the Year 1-4 syndicates and Rooms 10 & 11 in the Year 5-8 syndicates, for receiving the Kaitiaki Turtle Recycling Award from the Kaitiakitanga Values Team this week. Our recycling monitors are checking classrooms to ensure that there is only rubbish in the rubbish bins and only recycling in the recycling bins. Fantastic effort!

Community Recycling 

Soft plastics from home can be taken to: Countdown - Avonhead - Cnr Withells Rd & Merrin St. See https://www.recycling.kiwi.nz/store-locator for locations for soft plastic drop offs. NZ Post also has on offer, Soft Plastic Recycle Courier bags, available in some NZ Post, New World, The Warehouse, and Warehouse Stationery outlets, as well as online, for $7.00. https://www.nzpost.co.nz/about-us/sustainability/soft-plastic-recycle-courier-bags