MFESANE Secondary School in Motherwell conducted their first litter accumulation surveys on their school grounds, sorted through the waste and sent it off for recycling through the help of a large wirework coelacanth fish, known as Munch.
Rolled out by local non-profit organisation, the Sustainable Seas Trust (SST), and founded by siblings Jemima (9) and Gabriel Reilly (12), Munch is a recycling deposit that is moved around schools to help collect and sort waste at source before it ends up in the ocean.
In just two weeks of adopting the recycling deposit, the school’s environmental club learners filled Munch with litter from their school.
“The environmental club coordinator, founder and teacher, Patricia Mapuma, was very proud of the environmental club learners. Regardless of how busy they were with exams, that didn’t stop them from conducting waste accumulation surveys during break time,” said SST head of education, Nozi Mbongwa.
Mfesane Secondary School became the first school to join SST’s Munch on the Move training programme and adopt Munch for a month.
Each week, the school conducted litter accumulation surveys on the school grounds over a period of three days. However, they could not complete week three surveys due to the Covid-19 pandemic resulting in school closures.
Munch is divided into five waste components: plastic caps, PET bottles, paper, HDPE plastic items and aluminium cans.
The school collected 27kg of white paper, 6kg of aluminium cans, 6kg of HDPE plastics, 12kg of PET plastic bottles, 5kg of bottle caps and one bag of lollipop sticks.
“I really loved the dedication and commitment from Mfesane Secondary School learners, they really want to keep their school grounds clean,” said Mbongwa.
“Munch was full in just two weeks, which has made me rethink the size of Munch. Some schools are in great need of infrastructure and bins to help them collect and separate their waste. We want to make a slightly bigger Munch for schools that don’t receive waste collection services,” said Mbongwa.
