
Rubbish and littering at school is a constant battle. Thank God our cleaners do such a great job. When Wadalba Community School opened in 2000 the foundation teaching staff took a tour of the toilets both Girls and Boys. It was the last time that they would look and smell normal, the toilets not the teachers!
When I look around our community you can see why schools reflect society. What a mess Mr Hart! What can you do? HEAPS! (I worry when I start answering my own questions).
Yes we can reflect on the good things, and
thanks to all those (few) people who do all the work. Do you feel bad
yet?
What can we do? At school, staff actively pickup papers to demonstrate that we are human and are not just there to tell kids to pick them up. If we do ask kids we also chip in! It's not perfect but it is a strategy that we hope works with a few. We discussed placing a levy/tax on food sold at the canteen (a few cents per item) to hire a special cleaner to help with the rubbish? We placed garbage bins where most rubbish occurs. We teach environmental issues and discuss with students what can be done? But still we have a wave of rubbish everyday.
Some of you may know the song Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie:
You can get anything you want at
Alice's Restaurant…..
Well we got there and there was a big sign and
a chain across the dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving."
And we had
never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes
we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.
We
didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road
there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was
another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two
little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours
down.
Source:
http://www.lyrics.com
This is a call to action... start small,
get involved, benz the nees, recommend changes to council, dob
in a dropper! Ask your kids do they put their rubbish in the bins at school and
don't forget to wear clean undies next time you go out!
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