After the Easter holidays, the Holy Cross School is set to replace the plastic cutlery in the canteen with a more eco-friendly bamboo replacement! Holy Cross has been making many changes and encouraging its students to become more sustainable. 

 

Currently, the Holy Cross School has single-use plastic cutlery for students who order meals from its canteen. Although convenient, they can take hundreds and even thousands of years to decompose. Additionally, 8 million tons of plastic waste end up in our oceans affecting sea creatures who accidentally eat the microplastics. 

So, our eco-club has decided to replace the plastic forks and knives with bamboo alternatives. Unlike their plastic counterparts, they are fully biodegradable and it's easy to farm the bamboo itself. Did you know that bamboo even takes more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in photosynthesis than most other plants?

I spoke to Elishka Rassapour, a member of the Holy Cross Student Council. She said that Holy Cross is 'working its way to reduce its plastic footprint across the building' and its desire to 'set the standard...of sustainability in schools' inspired the change. 

This isn't the only change the eco-club has made around and encouraged around the school. Holy Cross now has permanent Meatless Mondays, where it only offers vegetarian main meals in the canteen. Additionally, the old styrofoam plates have now been replaced with fully recyclable ones. These small changes are having a big impact on Holy Cross' plastic footprint. 

Furthermore, Valeria Martino, one of Year 11's eco representatives, told me that the eco-club was looking to implement many more measures. This is to influence students' attitudes to the environment as well as reduce our school's impact on the environment. 

Some of the ideas that they brainstorm in their meetings include: planting some trees at the back of the field, planting more plants in the Peace Garden to increase its biodiversity; and encouraging more online work where possible to save as much paper as possible. This is in addition to having more assemblies and PSHE lessons addressing how we as individuals and a school community can help save our environment. 

It's clear that our eco-club and student council representatives at Holy Cross have been working very hard to help address climate change within the school and local community, and I look forward to seeing what they'll do next!