This new school year 2023/24 will see the beginning of our attempt to gain the next Green Flag. This flag is for Water.
We will be actively trying to reduce waste of water in the school and educating ourselves on how to use less of this precious resource.
The first initiative decided upon by our Green School Committee is to stop washing out yogurt pots/bottles after lunchtime.
We collected yogurt pots on one day and measured how much water was needed to wash a regular-sized one.
We found that it takes a massive 300ml of water to clean just ONE pot!
So now, instead of washing each individually, we collect all these containers in a basin which is then brought to the staff room daily by one of of our committee. The pots are then put into the dishwasher to be cleaned out. The dishwasher is used daily anyway so the pots are cleaned without using any extra water! (Our dishwasher always goes on the ECO cycle).
Keep an eye on this page for updates on our Water Journey! We will also hold a Litter Picking Day again in the Spring, this will be posted about in advance both here and on our Facebook page.
We thank all parents again for their continued support in keeping our waste and litter reduced.
Please remember our Green Lunchbox Rules:
* No cling film ever
* No Frubes or similar
* No Dairylea Dippers or similar
* Use reusable containers as much as possible
* Use as little wrapping as possible - multi section lunchboxes eliminate the need to wrap everything
* Children should always check if they are unsure if litter is recyclable
We will be actively trying to reduce waste of water in the school and educating ourselves on how to use less of this precious resource.
The first initiative decided upon by our Green School Committee is to stop washing out yogurt pots/bottles after lunchtime.
We collected yogurt pots on one day and measured how much water was needed to wash a regular-sized one.
We found that it takes a massive 300ml of water to clean just ONE pot!
So now, instead of washing each individually, we collect all these containers in a basin which is then brought to the staff room daily by one of of our committee. The pots are then put into the dishwasher to be cleaned out. The dishwasher is used daily anyway so the pots are cleaned without using any extra water! (Our dishwasher always goes on the ECO cycle).
Keep an eye on this page for updates on our Water Journey! We will also hold a Litter Picking Day again in the Spring, this will be posted about in advance both here and on our Facebook page.
We thank all parents again for their continued support in keeping our waste and litter reduced.
Please remember our Green Lunchbox Rules:
* No cling film ever
* No Frubes or similar
* No Dairylea Dippers or similar
* Use reusable containers as much as possible
* Use as little wrapping as possible - multi section lunchboxes eliminate the need to wrap everything
* Children should always check if they are unsure if litter is recyclable
The 2021/22 school year saw the beginning of our attempt to secure a Green Flag for Dunhill NS.
Since then we have been making great strides and have dramatically reduced our waste.
We hope to be awarded the Litter and Waste flag this year.
We greatly appreciate the efforts of all our students and parents in our endeavour.
In order to reduce our waste, action was taken on school lunches.
Just a reminder of what we have done so far:
- cling film has been banned entirely from school lunchboxes
- we ask that Frubes or similar are not included in lunchboxes (but if a child does bring one, they MUST bring the wrapper home for binning)
- we ask that children bring Cheese Dipper pots home for binning (Dairylea or similar). We discovered that the cheese mixture in the pots has been clogging our drains as pupils were doing their best to clean out the pots before putting them in the recycling bins
- we have returned to using towels in bathrooms, no more paper
Members of our Green Schools committee (made up of staff and pupils) have conducted a litter survey. The results are currently being graphed and will be published here once complete.
Our daily Litter Pick in the school yard is becoming less of a chore every day. This is thanks to the great efforts being made by our pupils to be extra conscientious of their litter and making sure to use the correct bins.
The next event on our Green Schools calendar is our Spring Clean day. This will take place (weather permitting) on Tuesday February 21st and we will be inviting any parents or members of the local community who can help on the day to come along while we do our best to clean up any litter from the roads and hedges local to our school. Information about class times and location was put on our school Facebook page.
We were delighted to receive 20 new Litter Pickers from Waterford County Council for use in our Spring Clean.
Ten of these are on loan and ten can be kept by the school after the day.
UPDATES
Our Spring Clean Day was a great success! Despite a damp start, we all got out and managed to fill several large black sacks with rubbish found on the roadsides around village. Infants did a great job in the yard and school surroundings. 1st and 2nd Class then headed over towards the church. They found lots of litter hiding under hedges on the way. In the graveyard they picked up lots of old artificial flowers, broken pots and so on. They also found more litter on the road down to Harney's.
Mr Hally's 3rd and 4th Class went along the front of the school and the Community Hall and found plenty to fill their sacks. Finally, Mr Cooper's 5th and 6th Classes went up the hill beside the school and once again found lots of litter hiding on the roadsides and under hedges.
Many pupils really found the day eye-opening. A seemingly tidy litter-free roadside could actually be hiding lots of rubbish which would take hundreds if not thousands of years to decompose. We talked a lot about how it is the responsibility of everyone to work together to make our world litter-free.
Following our Spring Clean, 10 litter pickers were gratefully returned to the Council.
At the end of February, we submitted our Green Flag application. We are currently awaiting a visit from an assessor who will see first-hand all of our efforts and hard work. Watch this space for updates!
MAJOR NEWS!
We were delighted to hear on Wednesday April 19th that we have been successful in our Green Flag application!
This is a great testament to the hard work of everyone involved in attaining this award for Dunhill NS.
On Wednesday May 10th, 4 members of our Green Schools committee will travel along with other local schools to Kilkenny for the 2023 Green Flag awards. We will have a flag-raising ceremony here at school later on in the term, so watch this space for details.
UPDATE
On Monday 12th June we were delighted to raise our Green Flag for Litter and Waste. As promised, Marc O'Cathasaigh Green Party TD came to the school to help us raise the flag, which he did along with Green Schools Committee members. Afterwards we had a little party to celebrate. We were delighted that some parents and former staff member joined us on this proud day.
See all the photos below!
