Attymass National School scooped this year’s Repak/An Taisce Recycling Primary School of the Year award despite tough competition at the 2013 Repak Recycling Awards which took place in The Westin Dublin last week. Attymass National School is a five teacher school located near Ballina with a total of 60 students. A comprehensive review carried out by the committee highlighted the need to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill through intensive waste minimisation practices and a drive toward recycling and composting. Overall, a 77 per cent reduction in the number of plastic bottles was made, a huge achievement to the school.
The number of plastic bottles being disposed of over a school year was an astounding 11,712 as each pupil was receiving a bottle from the healthy lunches scheme daily and this was going straight to the general waste bin and not recycled. The school went from zero composting to five litres per week and increased their recycling by 33 per cent. Altogether they managed to reduce their total waste volumes by 93 per cent since implementation of the Green-Schools Programme.
This is Repak’s 11th year of its Repak recycling awards which are run as part of its now well established Repak Recycling Week. Chairing the awards were Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government Phil Hogan TD.
