Saving Otago’s Environment

Otago Community Trust funding is helping schools recycle their waste.

Not only has the effort meant less landfill at the tip, it’s also beautifying the Otago landscape.  And it’s instilling good waste management practices in young people, with more families changing habits and recycling waste at home as a result.

The Environmental Education for Resource Sustainability Trust programme provides bins for schools to recycle cardboard and paper, helps the pupils to monitor their work, then rewards their efforts by donating a native tree to the school for each two cubic metres of recycling.

It is a nationwide programme, run by a charitable trust, with 245 schools and preschools participating in Otago alone.  Last year, the project diverted 900 tonnes of Otago school waste into recycling.