Vision

Our vision for Canada is… plastic free!

The Bishop Reding ECO Team feels a strong need to limit the amount of waste siting in Canada’s landfills. Our vision is to help others understand the importance of making small changes in their daily lives that have a great positive impact on the environment. Our project addressed the amount of waste that plastic water bottles contribute to the landfill, specifically bottle caps. Many students in our school community were unaware that the bottle caps are not recyclable in our region, and therefore end up in the landfill. Our goal with the bottle cap initiative was to raise awareness of this issue and provide staff and students within our school community with an eco-friendly alternative to using plastic water bottles.

Action

Our bottle cap initiative project has two main goals, the first to raise awareness of the volume of plastic entering landfills, and second to provide a cleaner alternative. To raise awareness, we formed a contest where each class in the school would collect as many bottle caps as possible over the course of a month. Students enjoyed the friendly competition and were able to visibly see how much plastic was being sent to the landfill over such a short period of time. When the contest was over, the ECO team collaborated with the Art team to make a beautiful mosaic out of these plastic caps to ensure that they were being reused rather than thrown into a landfill. The money from the grant was used to buy materials, as well as a mount for the mosaic. The mosaic will permanently hand in our school as a reminder for staff and students to make environmentally friendly choices.

The second part of our project came after the bottle cap collection, when our ECO team purchased and sold reusable metal water bottles to the school community. We collaborated with the business club to learn about the best ways to design and market our environmentally friendly product. These water bottles were a great success as staff and students were excited to purchase them and use our water fountains throughout the day rather than bringing plastic water bottles that would otherwise end up in the landfill.

Reflection & Celebration

This was the first time that the ECO team took on this type of project. We were able to collaborate with other school teams which allowed us to learn from one another about the different aspects of this project. The project was definitely successful, as we noticed the enthusiasm of the students during the bottle cap collection, which they will be able to remember each time they see the mosaic. We hope that this further inspires students to repurpose other “waste” to that it does not needlessly end up in the landfill. The water bottle campaign was also successful as we can see staff and students making use of the water bottles. We hope that over time more and more students begin to use resuable bottles. We plan to sell more of our bottles at future school events.