Today, students, teachers, custodians and administrators of the Halton District School Board, Halton Catholic District School Board, Provincial Schools Branch, Conseil scolaire Viamonde, and Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud start a new school year.
Halton Region has great partnerships with the publicly-funded schools in Halton. IN fact, all publicly-funded schools in Halton participate in Blue Box and GreenCart programs, which reduces the amount of waste being sent to landfill. In addition, many schools implement boomerang or waste-free lunches to further minimize waste. In 2011, the Halton District School Board reduced its garbage by 100 tonnes!
Did you know? Halton Region was the first municipality in Ontario to have all its publicly-funded schools participate in the GreenCart program! Halton’s GreenCart school program was recognized by the Canadian Network for Environmental Education & Communication with an Award of Excellence in Environmental Education.
Schools can order promotional materials like posters and stickers to remind students and teachers what’s accepted in Blue Boxes, GreenCarts and garbage. An informal committee of teachers, custodians and school board officials helped to design the new acceptable materials posters.
To help educate students and staff about recycling and composting, Halton Region provides in-school waste diversion workshops. Since 2006, Halton has delivered over 1,200 educational workshops to over 150,000 students! Halton’s school education program has been recognized by the Recycling Council of Ontario with a Gold Ontario Waste Minimization Award.
Many schools extend their environmental education programs and participate in tours of the Halton Waste Management Site. Students are always amazed to see where their garbage goes.
We love to learn from students and teachers too! Elementary students, secondary students and teachers have written guest posts for this blog about ways they are working to protect our environment. We’d love to hear from your school too!
We hope this school year is fantastic and… green.
